I spend the few few weeks of kindergarten just exploring different materials.

• We use crayons and pencils and markers, which almost all have used but we talk about the expectations of using them in an art room, like not breaking or being rough, and then we see what we can do with them, how they react to being pressed hard or soft, if they have texture or are smooth, if we can blend them.
• We then move onto the more art roomy stuff, like the art stix, paint sticks, oil and chalk pastels.
• When we’re exploring like this they are putting little drawings into their “toolbox” (a folder) showing that they know how to use the material, and they also get to make a second drawing that they get to bring home. It helps me keep track of what we’ve done too.
• Before we move onto painting, we talk about lines and how this is a very important element of art. They’ve made lots of lines with their drawings at this point and they’ve also learned about lines (horizonal, vertical and diagonal) in their classroom. We come up with different patterns of lines, like squiggly and zigzag.
• Then everyone gets one color of art stix and puts some lines on a big piece of paper. I have examples on the board that they can look up at if they forget.
• The next class is a step-by-step making a crayon (even though we used art stix.) I try to match the paper to the color they chose as close as I can. Between steps I encouraged the kids to look at me with “big jungle cat eyes” so I know when they are ready to move onto the next step.
• We then glue our crayon anywhere on the paper and sign our names on the back 🙂