Kinder Turkeys: Red + Yellow = Mixing Secondary Colors!

To combine a seasonal theme with skill building, I came up with these turkey paintings. Rather than have the kinders stamp their hands into paint and make a hand print, I decided that they could trace their hands with pencils, then mix colors RED and YELLOW to make the secondary color ORANGE and paint in their shape. 

open hand turkey

closed hand turkey with red snood

At circle we read Run, Turkey, Run! (it worked fine, but I think I'd like another book if I do this lesson again... something that doesn't make me feel bad about eating turkeys). 

Next, I modeled how to write a message, my name, and the date in marker along the border. 

Then, how to trace my hand - open and closed feathers were their choice. I also showed how to draw stick legs, triangle nose, and snood. (Snoods can be painted in red paint with one stroke!)

Lastly, how to use the color wheel palettes to mix the two colors. 

After showing them how they'd clean up their palette and brush, I sent them to seats. 

Materials I put out at tables:

-pre-cut and glued green and orange paper (6x6" green on 9x9" orange paper - cut from 12x18" pieces)

-markers to write a message/date/name in the border

-pencil for the hand trace

When students finished tracing their hands, I then handed them 

-a laminated color wheel "palette" that had red and yellow tempera paint on it.* 

-a brush 

-paper towel  (No need for water cups!!)

After students were finished painting, they practiced cleaning off the laminated color wheel with a sponge in the sink, putting it on the drying rack, cleaning their paint brush and leaving it hair up in the cup to dry. 

Here you can see the laminated color wheel palette! 

I have them leave their paintings at their table OR put them on their name-tagged carpet square at circle. Then they could choose free-draw with markers or free-dough, which is just a ball of Crayola play-dough on a tray that I have available. 

*FUNNY STORY.... so after I cut and glued 40 of these paper squares and set up the palettes for the first class, I then tried my sample. And that's when I realized that yellow paint doesn't show up on green paper very well. And that the green paper also made the orange looked like brown. Ha. My jaw dropped and I yelled at myself "This is why you try it yourself FIRST!" But luckily, not too big of a deal! Turkeys are brown after all! It almost looked like I planned it on purpose! What I did to make the tempera yellow pop a little more was to drop a little acrylic yellow paint into it. I was lucky this time! 

Happy Thanksgiving!