I was looking at some samples of student art work that I had accumulated over the years and came across these fish paintings. The lesson itself was based on warm and cool colors and was taught to kindergarten students. It also had a science component to it as we had to look at fish and determine what parts we needed to create an image of the fish.
As motivation for the lesson I read A Fishy Shape Book by David and Joan Wylie. This book shows a fish created from a variety of basic shapes. It ask the question is it a circle fish? Is it a square fish? And so on. The illustrations are simple and it show students how to add shapes together to create the image of a fish. This is only one of the fish books written and illustrated by this couple.
After looking at the book students would draw a shape on the paper with a crayon. Then we would talk about what we needed to add to create the head, fins and tail. I would often show slides of real fish and we would try to decide what shape best represented the body of the fish to further our study of fish. The idea is to get them to think beyond the circle with a triangle fish that they are often taught to draw.
Having drawn our fishes, we then focused on color. We would divide colors into two families, the warm family or the cool family. Each child would then select a color family for there fish and paint it. To create the scales the students would use piece of cardboard stamped on to the surface of the fish. This was done by standing the cardboard on end in black paint and then pressing the painted cardboard on to the fish.
Here's a tip for painting with tempera with young children. Empty egg cartons make great paint trays. You can put some color in each of the sections. When the painting is done you simply throw it away. Makes clean up easy!
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