Ms. Shook Land

"I Ain't Gonna Paint No More"
By Karen Beaumont (Author) and David Catrow (Illustrator)

 This is one of my favorite books to read to my little ones.  We really like rhymes in elementary school.  And the illustrations are fabulous and very artsy.  This is a project I did with my first graders.  We read the book about a little boy who loves to paint, he loves it enough to paint himself.

Next, I divided them into small groups around the room.  Each group gets a large sheet of white bulletin board paper.  They picked one person from their group to pose on the paper while the rest of the group traced their outline in pencil.  Now it's time for paint!

                                                 
 I gave the groups one paint color at a time and rotated colors around the room. They had to work together to determine what to paint, what colors to mix together, how much paint to use, etc.  It's a great project for students to learn how to work together and listening to each others ideas and suggestions.  It's also great for learning about colors, patterns, and shapes.

Once the entire body is painted they have to dry.  This is probably the hardest part for me.  Finding a place to lay all these giant paintings without having them drip or fold on themselves.  The next class period students were very excited to see their dried paintings.  The last step is having them cut out their painted people.  Students are each given a pair of scissors and work together to follow their traced lines.  

After that we staple them in the halls.  It is a quick fun project that adds lots of color and movement to our plain walls.