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  • Banner with colorful artwork promoting an art shop featuring kindness coloring pages, artist activities, and resources for teachers.

Free Art Sub Plan: Primary Color Hands

This Free Art Sub Plan provides a creative worksheet for Grades K-2 featuring the "Primary Color Hands" project. It includes detailed steps and a charming hand-drawn example, showcasing vibrant patterns on traced hands for an engaging art experience.

This is an art project perfect for a kindergarten to 2nd grade substitute lesson plan. When you have to take a sick day, you never know if your sub is going to have an art background or not. This is a simple, one page art handout with goals, steps and an example. In order to print out the full, high resolution handouts, visit my TPT shop for the FREE download! This was a lesson idea a former colleague shared with … Read more…

Rainbow Order Coloring Template

Rainbow Order Coloring Template

The first day of school was an orientation day for Kinders and new kids. We had a very shortened schedule and I saw the Kindergartners for about 10-15 minutes. I never feel like I know what the best use of that time is, because it is too short to do any real art projects and it is the first time I am meeting them. So, I decided to read them a story about colors and then do a simple coloring … Read more…

Fun Art Process with Stencils and Watercolor Paints

Colorful dinosaur and moon doodles, with a name and the brand "Nike" in children's handwriting, created using watercolor paints.

This is a very simple, but satisfying process I tried with 1st graders.  All you need is a pencil, some stencils and watercolors. Over the years I have collected all kinds of stencils from garage sales, thrift stores, donations and catalogs.  I have them all in a big box for kids to pick from.  Sharpies are optional and can be used to trace over lines. The first step is to use the stencils to draw shapes, write words and make designs.  This … Read more…

Primary Color Hands for Kindergartners

Primary Color Hands for Kindergartners

Here is a simple lesson to introduce your students to the primary colors. We started out by reading the book Mouse Paint, which is a fun story to teach about primary colors. My kindergartners, while I love them dearly, were having difficulties lately with classroom procedures. We needed to go back to the basics with simple materials until they understood how and why to clean up. I pulled out this idea that I got about 11 years ago when I first … Read more…

Color Theory and Rhythm Drawings by 3rd Grade

Colorful abstract drawing on white paper with the word "Rainbow" written underneath, showcasing concepts of color theory.

This is a project I love to do with the 3rd graders.  Their drawing all turn out so unique and fun.  First, we talk about what rhythm in art is.  Rhythm is like a visual beat in a picture, created by lines, colors, shapes and space.  Rhythm can be made by repeating certain elements of art.  Here is a good handout about rhythm. Here is another handout about rhythmic line designs.   The students each drew their own line drawing showing … Read more…

Why I Love Collage

A collage of various objects and patterns, featuring watermelon slices, oranges, and the word "awesome" in the center.

Collage became a part of Modern art in the early 20th century. Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque were credited with naming this type of art. The word collage comes from the French word coller, which means to glue. Collages can be made of many materials.  I have an assortment of student collages to show you. Collage art is unique because you take already existing materials and arrange them into a new art form. Collage is all about playing around with … Read more…

Color Scheme Studies with 3rd Grade

A set of four abstract panels on a white background, labeled Analogous, Warm, Rainbow, and Cool, studies colorful geometric shapes.

My third grade classes studied color theory by using the color wheel.  They learned about many different color schemes including warm, cool, neutral, primary, secondary, rainbow, analogous, monochromatic and complementary.  First, they started by coloring in this Color Wheel worksheet.  (I added monochromatic and neutral to the list.) On 8.5″ x 5.5″ white copy paper, the students drew a design that had rhythm through the use of repeating lines or shapes.  We talked about how rhythm in art is similar … Read more…

Shape Paintings and Color Mixing with Kindergartners

Abstract painting with swirling patterns, bold black lines, and vibrant colors in shades of pink, blue, and green created using color mixing techniques.

Wow, I’ve been so busy.  Aren’t we all though, right?  But really, this is one of the most busy times of year.  Parent-teacher conferences this week and March is when the yearbook needs to be finished up.  I also put up an art show at the public library (which I will post about later) and we have been working like crazy on our mural in the hallway!  The mural is almost done and I am just waiting until everything has … Read more…

  • Banner with colorful artwork promoting an art shop featuring kindness coloring pages, artist activities, and resources for teachers.