Mimicking Matisse

This month, my students are learning about shapes. Our favorite activity has been spying shapes in famous art! 

Using orange frames, contact paper, and scraps of paper we tore during transition times that day, we made these great Matisse look-a-likes!

 

 Can you even pick out the real The Snail in the middle? They are pretty similar!

We also looked at Auguste Herbin's work Composition on the word "Vie", 2. I pre-cut the shapes in matching colors and sat with each child individually as they did their Herbin, encouraging them to put shapes on top of shapes.

Also, I reused my idea from last year, looking at Kandinsky's work. As my teaching becomes more process focused (instead of product), I find that I am tweaking things I've used previously to more thoroughly teach concepts and better support my learning objectives. This year, each child contributed one or two squares to our large piece of art, instead of making their own. We focused on discussed the sizes of the lids we used (big, bigger, biggest). 

I just hope my students remember to invite me to their gallery openings when they grow up to be famous artists!