Kindergarten Is Full of Wild Things!

Anyone else feel like they need a thousand new kindergarten lessons each and every year?  Even after 15 years of teaching, I still get to about February and think "I need more for kindergarten to do" or "there are not enough lessons in my kindergarten binder section to finish out the year" and the panic sets in.  The lesson I'm going to share with you today is not earth-shattering, it's an oldie-and-a-goodie with a little twist, pop ups:

The first day we read Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are and drew our own wild things on 9 x 12 paper with pencil.  We then traced them with Sharpie and colored them with the Crayola color sticks (I'm loving those lately).  The next time they came to art I had 12 x 18 paper all ready for them with their names written on the back for them to paint a background for their wild things with block tempera (we used the Biggie Cakes):

"Bonus" wild things and cave (we don't always follow the directions/rules,
but that's OK when you're working as an artist)

Tornado and boat on the water

Rainbows and trees--I adore kindergarten rainbows!

The third time they came to art, we cut out our wild things, leaving a little "halo" around them, and used our trash to add paper rings to the back so they'd pop up.  Love them!

Really, I know it looks like a cigarette or something,
but if you saw it close up you would see it's a silver tongue.

I love kindergarten projects like this, ones that turn out all kindergarten-ey, all different and colorful and amazing.