Fall Projects- Silly Secondaries for Kindergartners

School is starting in a WEEK! I am going to share with you my favorite 3 fall themed projects for my primary students. I generally opt for seasonal projects instead of holiday themed projects with my students. There will be no Santas, ghosts, goblins or leprechauns being made in my art room!

Seriously, how adorable are these pumpkins!? I do this project each fall with my kindergartners. You can see the progression and past galleries below.
Silly Secondaries 2013   Silly Secondaries 2012  Silly Secondaries 2011 Silly Secondaries 2010

Sorry for the lack of photos on this post. Teaching kinders how to mix paint is tough enough without trying to document it! 

Day 1-Introduction to Painting and Making Orange

Prep- In yogurt (or disposable if you prefer) put a small amount of red in the bottom and cover completely with yellow paint. (It's a secret-the students don't know their is red in there!). A pair of students will share a cup so you will need enough paint to paint two 9x12 papers. Write students names on paper with sharpie. My students stand when painting,so I push tables together, push chairs away to make this happen.
Work Time: Demonstrate and review painting rules with your students. Suit them up in smocks, pair them up. Introduce color mixing and have them mix away. Tip**Flip paper so name is on back or have them paint around their name. Paint the paper fully and without white spots. Review rules and needed.
I like showing this fun and quick video to introduce the primary colors!

Day 2-Making Green and Purple

Prep- Yogurt cups with blue/red and with yellow/blue. I do sneak some purple into the blue/red cup since my 'purple' when mixed is a bit brown. Prep 12x18 paper with students' names.
Work Time: Review rules and smock students up. They will be painting their landscapes today. Pair them up and pass out blue/yellow cup. Show them that they can make hills or mountains with wavy or zig-zag lines. Paint a line in the middle and from edge to edge. Fill in everything below line green. I demo this so the students see what exactly needs to be done. When done, depending on your trust, students can bring used brushes and paint to the sink/trash or you can collect. Pass out red/blue cup and new brushes.Tip** Have students rotate paper so the white side is closest! No reaching and no paint on elbows! Mix and paint sky purple.

Day 3-Cutting Pumpkins and Parts

Prep- Circle stencils or have students practice drawing large ovals on a dry erase board. By this point my students have been practicing their cutting and gluing skills by using the skill sheets listed below. They will only need their orange paper, scissors (pass out after they make circles), bin of black and white scraps for face parts.
Comprehensive Cutting Pack 
Gluing Skill Sheet
Cutting Skills Sheet
Work time-Students will get their orange paper back and draw a large oval on the back and cut it out. Tip**Carry a highlighter with you and help as needed. Depending on the time you can have students cut eyes, mouth and teeth. In the past I traced a mouth shaped stencil onto black paper with a white colored pencil and let the students cut them out. Store all these parts in a gallon ziptop bag! See other uses for ziptop bags here.

Connect the dots to make a big rainbow, it will make a big circle! 

Day 4- Glue Demonstration and Putting it all Together! 

Prep-Students will need their landscapes, ziptop bag full of parts and glue.
Work time- Demonstrate glue use. This chart is usually on display in my room. We read through it  and students can refer to it when they need to. Once again, my students have already practiced with glue on glue skill sheets. We glue the pumpkin to the landscape first, then add face parts. Once these are done, I hang them at a local kid-friendly restaurant where the parents and students can go see their first painting! If the weather cooperates we even take a walking field trip!

New for this year I am going to have students write about what they are doing on the back of their projects. For this project I will make a handout for students to color and cut and glue colored squares to. 

What is your favorite fall project?

See what else I have planned for the year here.