Friday, April 17, 2015

Kinder Snowy Penguins

Kinder: Snowy Penguins

Kinder students explored Emperor penguins. They watched a couple short videos showing how penguins move across ice (they waddle and slide on their bellies!). They are also excellent swimmers. They love to eat fish and they do not mind humans coming around to watch them. Penguins make an interesting sound as well. They can stretch their necks up and down. Kinders made many observations about these amazing birds. Penguins like to walk around on giant icebergs. Sometimes they dive off the icebergs into the frigid ocean water. 

I found the idea for these cute penguins here:


 This was a true mixed media project with lots of collage. Students prepared the background by painting white card with liquid watercolors. Most colors were in the cool color range. We did use a few coral, fushia/pinkish/purple hues. I was pretty much using up what we had left. We used a lot of blue/green-blue/turquoise. For some classes, we experimented with drawing snow with white crayon/white oil pastel before painting. Students enjoyed seeing the "snow" magically appear when they painted. I do like the way the backgrounds came out. Great use of limited palette in this case. 

The next class, I did a step-by-step for drawing a simple iceberg on white cardstock. Each student received a 5 x 7 white card. We drew an oval at the top, followed by 2 vertical lines and a "connector" line at the bottom. Students colored all contour lines (edges) with blue pastel. Then, smudged with their finger to produce a rather awesome looking iceberg. The iceberg was glued onto the background.

 To begin penguins, we began with drawing upside down "U" shapes on pre-cut 5" x 8" black paper. We did the same with pre-cut white paper. This paper was slightly smaller than the black. We continued adding shapes-eyes, beak, flippers. Flippers involved drawing a circle on pre-cut black squares, cutting out and then cutting in half. Pieces were glued on the background as we went.

Next class, students added hats, scarfs, and feet. Hats were cut from pre-cut scrapbooking papers. I had acquired a rather large collection and this was a great way to use this. The original project from Deep Space Sparkle involved buttons down the middle of the penguin. I was limited on buttons, however, so each student placed 1 button on the hat. I found that pre-cutting the yarn was also extremely helpful for kinders. Then, they could glue it as a scarf.
Last class, involved dabbing on more snow with cu-tips using white tempera paint. 

This project took about five 30 minute class sessions to complete. 

I can the personalities of these penguins in these great works of art. Great job Kinder!

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