Kindergarten 8-Panel Comics

This is quite an overdue post, but during the 3rd quarter the Kindergarten and 1st Grade students completed 8-panel comics based on the idea of traveling to visit a family member or friend. The inspiration for this unit was Up & Down by Britta Teckentrup which I read to the students and had them analyze. After the reading students discussed the idea of pictures telling a story as well as stories usually having multiple "middles" but only one "beginning" and "end."

After much discussion and sharing, students final work of art was a 8-panel comic with a beginning, six middle sections, and a clear ending in which they arrive at their destination to visit their friend or family member.

See below for a sample of the work by the Kindergarten classes:

Kindergarten Burr Re-Design

Most children go to school… but what would school be like if students created it? After reading A World of Your Own by Laura Carlin students redesigned their rooms, then, they redesigned Burr... from the look of the building outside to the inside of four different classrooms. As students created a "school of their own" they discussed vocabulary words such as Design and Invention whilst creating a school with meaningful classes such as swimming, tasting food, and of course, Lego class.

Although this unit did take longer than most of the units I have done with Kindergarten and 1st grade it was well worth their time, the students really did enjoy feeling like they could create their own school and they completed this unit meeting any challenges by working together.

Below are some of the completed works by Kindergarten!

Kindergarten and 1st Grade Family Trees

As an introduction to portraiture students learned to draw their family members, make realistic facial features, use markers to darken lines, and color using realistic colors.

As students completed their portraits they cut them out and glued them on to trees which they cut out.

Kindergarten and 1st Grade Mandalas

This school year, as an introductory unit, Kindergarten and 1st grade students analyzed Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni to learn about color mixing and warm/cool colors. After students completed color mixing practice activities they delved into shapes and creating images with shapes, which led into using symmetry with shapes to create mandalas!

Students were given various shape manipulatives and taught to fold paper to create a Mandala which would be symmetrical whether you folded the paper "hamburger style" or "hotdog style."

Once students completed their drawings using pencil they chose warm or cool colors to use on inner shapes, then they used the opposite color family on the shapes on the exterior of their mandala. (i.e. warm on the inside, cool on the outside, and vice versa.)