Fire and Ice Lions

Hello there!! It has been quite a while! So much has happened since the last time we chatted! I married a smokin' hott hunk, bought a cray cray adorbs house, and landed the most amazing job teaching elementary art at a cozy little school near my home town. My first year teaching has been so amazing and eventful and busy and wonderful and informative and exciting and FUN and.. and.. and! I feel it is time to sit down and share some of these experiences with the world (at least the world of 13 people who will read this post), which is why I am about to lay one of my favorite projects on you.

This is an "Ice Lion" created by a darling first grader. This project was actually sort of stolen from these really great lion paintings that I have been seeing all over the internet, but modified to fit the warm and cool color spiel that I wanted to give my littlest learners. The first day, we talked about warm and cool colors. I started off by asking them: "Did you know that colors actually have families?" Judging from the sound of crickets and bewildered looks, I hadn't quite hooked them yet, so I continue "When ol' Red Crayon leaves a long 12 hour shift at the paper tinting factory, who is at home waiting for him (or her) around the dinner table?" This at least earns me a tiny spark in their eyes, maybe even a sympathy laugh or two. We then talk about the family who lives across the street... The Cools, who are very hip and chill and listen to very relaxing music all the time.

The topic that got the little dudes slapping their knees were the folks who didn't even get to live in a house, but more of a dungeon under the street, which were of course, the Neutrals. After our riveting, but strange discussion of color families, we started by diving into our crayon box and separating all of our crayons into warm, cool and neutral piles (I don't think I would do this again with them. Some of those kids are crayon hoarders, and it took much longer than I wanted.)

Finally we draw!! The students each got an 11"x17" piece of paper and a speech about how to take care of it over the next few classes as we create our lions (Don't be a paper bully! Draw light till you get it right!) We drew these lions step by step together very lightly with pencils, then outlined them with black crayon. I stressed the fact that their paper was HUGE (very true in kindergarten land), so they should use the space! Whiiiiich earned me a few of these...

Now I know that it's a little alien-ish, but I think it is very cool and interesting, and the little guy who made it nearly puffed up to three times his size, he was so proud. Over the next few classes, we reviewed the color families by separating into groups based on their shirt color, and discussing the interests and habits of these fictional lions (the Ice Lion always has a grape slushy for desert and the Fire Lion sleeps inside a campfire, duh.)

When the time came to choose which lion each student would represent, the kids really had a hard time choosing. It was nice to see them take time and make decisions instead of just marching forward to get tasks finished for once. Overall, I think this project was a success that will most definitely be repeated next year. They will look awesome in the hall when parents visit for a program next week! Later Gater.

(Those really great lion paintings: http://flying-crayons.blogspot.com/2012/03/in-like-lion.html)