Never Enough Kindergarten Lessons

Oh, KINDERGARTEN! I know some elementary art educators dislike kindergarten, and while I do really enjoy them, I feel like I never have enough lessons to [adequately] fill the year for them. The last lesson I did with them this year was really the mushing together of two old lessons, line printing (and this lesson):

Note the blue fingers in this photo.

Doesn't that look like some fabulous messy kindergarten fun? It's a simple line review.  I gave each student 3-4 tagboard strips measuring 1" x 18" and had them bend, fold and roll them into different lines then use the EDGE to print on 9 x 12 white paper with tempera paint. Always fun.  Always messy.
Next time, we read Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are and drew monsters on the back of our [now dry] line printing/paintings:

We drew with pencil, traced with extra fine point Sharpie.  Then we were ready to draw backgrounds/homes for our monsters/wild things:

Students were allowed to choose marker, crayon and/or Sharpie.  Finally, we cut out our monsters, flipped them over so the paint side was showing (to be line-y fur) and added details with marker before gluing them to the backgrounds:

Not totally sure what's going on here, but I love how sculptural his became.

As always, some understood the directions better than others, but even if they didn't/wouldn't glue it so the paint printing showed, they were all still adorable:

Although, maybe a bit violent?!

And bloody????

Have a great end of the year for those of you who are still in the thick of it, and enjoy a relaxing day or two after your school year ends (no hair combing or dressing around here today--it's my first rainy day of summer!) You all deserve a good rest, art teachers work HARD, friends!