Happy New Year Fireworks Painting!

I talked to the students about what they did for New Years and the majority of them said we got to watch the fireworks.  It gave me an idea that turned out wonderful.  Don't you just love it when things come together like that?  I used black construction paper and florescent tempera paint.  I did an example before I let them go for it.

Here are a few tips I told the students:
1. Make sure to hold down the paint brush with your thumb as you carry the plate at the same time to pass it to the next person.
2. Share with your neighbor.
3. When you are done, wash your hands and put your apron away.
4. Let your art dry on your desk.  Please do NOT pick it up to show me.  I will come to you.

Check out these neat pictures of the activity:

The Mitten Art Activity

My kids really liked this art activity.  I read the Jan Brett version of the story "The Mitten".  Afterwards, we discussed the different animal characters.  I showed them how to draw each one on the board, then I labeled each animal.  After all the animals were on the board, we put them in numerical order by when they joined the others in the mitten.  There are a lot of animals so at times, we had to go back and look for the answer in the book, which is a good skill for the students to be exposed to.  I gave the directions and the student's went to work.  Everyone was able to draw one or more animal characters from the story.  I hung them up to help decorate our classroom for a few days.  They came out nice.

Below are a few pictures of their final products:

If you would like to do this with your students, go to my store on teacherspayteachers.com and download it for free.  Here is the link:  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Kindergarten-Rocks-35.