Shoe Fish

Kindergarten
3 Class Periods

Shoe Fish, Kindergarten Art Lesson

Day 1:
On the first day of this lesson we examine various photographs of fish in the ocean.  We discuss fish anatomy:  eye, dorsal fin, tail, nares, gills, pectoral fin, pelvic fin, mouth and scales.

Students remove their shoe for this lesson and trace the bottom of their shoe three times on their paper.  The paper should be horizontal in front of the student.

Student's tracing shoes for fish body.

We then turn our paper vertical and transform each shoe outline into a fish by naming the parts and drawing that part on each shoe outline.  Magically the shoe becomes a fish!  Students are so impressed by this.

We end the class period by outlining our fish with a black sharpie marker.

Day 2:
On the second day we re-examine the photographs of fish.  We discuss patterns and the colors we see. Students use this class period to color their fish using markers, crayons or colored pencils.

Day 3:
Each child is given a blue piece of construction paper.  I like to offer a variety of blues to give them more say in what their artwork will look like.

A brown piece of paper is then cut and glued along the bottom to create the ocean floor.

Green strips are used to make the sea weed.

We next cut out our fish and glue them in the composition.  I demonstrate to student the concept of overlapping.

More green strips are added for sea weed.  Students are shown how to also create coral from construction paper.

White tempera paint is used to create bubbles, sand is glued to the brown construction paper and a shell is added to the composition with bottle glue as our finishing touches for these masterpieces.

Examples of Student Work: