Shapes with scissors

We are working on Learning Targets with our school; using tools properly is something we felt was very important. Kindergarten is all about the basics, and when you are mixing secondary colors or drawing and cutting shapes, it's a constant struggle to make things interesting for kids. I continue to incorporate characters and books that students know and love.

The last two weeks have been the start to clay projects at Cedar Creek; and to start clay, I typically read a story related to the project.  This year, Kindergarten will be creating clay caterpillars, they will experiment with sculpting the clay and adding texture (Post coming soon.) We read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and created a colorful caterpillar by drawing and cutting circles. I even introduced the "magic trick" of cutting two and three shapes at once.

 Students draw and cut their own shapes, they add in details like a face and called it the very hungry kindergartner.  They added a background of a leaf and even draw colorful fruits and vegetables using shapes.

We also looked at organic shapes and used some organic shapes to create a penguin. Students draw and cut their own penguin and complete a penguins home in the background.