Art in the Classroom...Henri Matisse

Do you get to teach art? I’m not talking about craftivities, but actually teach about artists? I am so lucky to work with a great team. We do class rotations on Friday, and because of this I actually get to teach about art and real artists. I LOVE it! Today, I want to share with you our work with Henri Matisse!

Now, even though I get to teach art, I only get 30 minutes with each class. So, my lessons are quick and to the point. I briefly show pictures of the artists and talk about their life. For Matisse, I found a video on YouTube that shows a lot of his work, so we watched it:)

We then looked at examples of is cut-outs. We talked about how they looked like different things. Some people saw a face, some people saw a water fountain. That is part of the coolness of Matisse’s work.

Then we got to work. ***DISCLAIMER*** Cut-Outs are M.E.S.S.Y! My room looked like a tornado hit it! The kiddos were SO creative and they loved the chance to create these projects! I cut 9×12 construction paper into quarters. I gave them a lot of color options. The only thing I allowed them to use their pencil for was their name. All of their designs they just had to cut, no pre-drawing. They didn’t like to lose that control but they learned to embrace it. We also talked about using color blocks in the background and then building our collage on top of that. Only a few kiddos took that route. We also talked about how Matisse would cut out different shapes and arrange them on the paper before he glued them down. This way he could make sure to get a design he liked:)

If you are looking for a project, I highly suggest this one. They were so focused on creating and figuring out different designs. They also loved trying to figure out what each others creations were.

Here is a final example…