Yay for Pre-K: Brown Bear, Brown Bear

This year I am teaching pre-k art. This is only my second year teaching, but in all of my teaching endeavors  I've never taught an age this young. I have to say I was a touch worried as to how our time together was going to go. I envisioned paint splattered walls, glue in hair, and ruined paint brushes. That is not at all what happened. The class is calm and I have wonderful kids who love to create and are eager to learn.

Our most recent project was an assemblage based on the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr and Eric Carle.

I collaborated with their teacher and found out that they focus on one book each week and this was one of the books. I wanted to focus on a lesson that encompassed painting, cutting, and gluing. I printed a circle and two ear shapes on card stock. The first class I gave them their papers and instructed them to paint inside their shapes trying to stay within the lines.

Let me note here that all through my education of art ed I was highly against templates and tracing. As time has gone by I have become more open to it. I don't think they should be used all the time. I do however find that there is less frustration from the students and less time consumed on elements that aren't part of the lesson objectives. There is also somewhat of an insurance that the art will come out looking as intended and not just a big blob.

The next time we met they cut out the shapes and assembled them onto a black piece of paper. We counted out ten small dots for the face and three small dots for the ears. Next, they glued down google eyes. Again, like with templates and tracing, I don't always use google eyes. Sometimes the project just calls for it though. They used black crayon to add the nose and mouth. Lastly we worked on letters and spelling the word brown.

I really like how they came out. We need to keep working on the glue, but I think these look awesome for pre-k.

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