Finger Painted Peacocks

I got the idea for this lesson from a fellow CCPS art teacher over at A. G. Richardson Elementary school.  Kindergarteners loved this lesson, because they got to get messy;  both hands and finger paint everywhere! I used the story, "Polar Bear Polar Bear What Do You Hear?" by Bill Martin Jr. & Eric Carle as inspiration. We read the whole story, but paid extra attention to the peacock at the end.

Day 1: Finger paint day!

Read Eric Carle's story, "Polar Bear Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?" The kindergartners loved to act out the sounds in the story!  At the end of the book, I paid extra close attention to the peacock illustration.  After introducing the lesson, I did a demonstration of the procedures. We used the sides of both of our hands to create the blue green pattern for the feathers.  I told the students, one hand was blue, one had was for green paint.  Then they did a "karate chop" in the shape of an arc, alternating hands.  I demonstrated this, and drew an example on the board. After the feathers were done, students raised their hands which cued me to come over and stamp the black body.  (I just used my hand print, since the body should be bigger then then feathers!)  Next, students used their fingers to make yellow spots under the body and around the feathers. The most challenging part of this day was clean up! 20 little kindergartens with messy hands, all needing to use the sink! Yikes!


Day 2: Collage Day

Each student received 3 pieces of scrap paper.  A larger yellow piece with 6 large circles drawn on it.  A medium green or purple piece with 6 medium circles drawn on it.  And a smaller red piece of paper, with no circles drawn on it.  Rather then drawing all those circles myself, I had some 5th graders help me out if they finished their work early.    Kindergartners were instructed to cut out all of the large and medium circles.  They used a glue stick to attach the circles of the feathers to make "eye feathers"  During this part of the lesson, they had to sort and stack circles from big to small...another Kindergarten Math SOL!  For the smallest circle, they used the red paper & a hole punch.  The last step was to add the eye!  Some students finished early and wanted to add extra details- trees, clouds, the sun, etc.