Art Lesson - Painting - K-1

This year I've done a couple of painting with tempera lessons. First you see the lesson I did with the Kindergarteners. It was a Spring theme. First, I talked about Spring with the kids. I had them give their ideas about Spring. Luckily, one boy brought up butterflies, since this is what I had in mind for my lesson.

I had them draw with pencil first so that they had a large butterfly. I didn't want small butterflies. If they went directly to painting, there would've probably been a lot of little butterflies, and I was hoping to spend some time on these.

I had them mix a little white with red to get pink, since that's a Spring color to me. The same was done with the dark purple to get a lavender color. We also mixed yellow with the dark green to get more of a light, new-leaf green.


When they were done with their butterflies, I wanted them to paint some other Spring things around it, such as leaves, flowers, bugs.... whatever they wanted.

These are some pretty creative little Kindergarteners, ya think??!


Another lesson was given with the 1st graders. One of the California Art Standards for 1st grade is to.... "2.2 Mix secondary colors from primary colors and describe the process." So I wanted to spend some time with that.

They had been learning about weather that week, so I wanted to do some weather pictures. I thought I would first focus on a sun. This would give me a chance to do some paint mixing, yellow and red to make orange. Since I'm a whimsical type of painter, I wanted them to make faces on their suns. I know, not very realistic, but fun anyway!

They went through that first painting very fast, so we did another painting. This time I had them mix green for some grass. I had them paint more of a stormy day, instead of sunny day.

Painting with tempera takes extra time and patience. I give each kid their own palette with the colors I intend for them to use. It's helpful with the little kids to maybe give a couple of dollups of yellow (for instance). One can be just for mixing, and one can stay yellow.


The funny quote of the day was when this little boy was describing his painting. He was going on saying how it was a very powerful type of storm, with lightening, rain and such.... "You know, when God was real."..... HILARIOUS!