In my quest this year to allow students as much creative expression and freedom within the boundaries of learning outcomes I felt a new approach to our color unit in my upper-elementary classes was in order. Instead of going over the color wheel as a lesson to introduce our color unit, I decided to give the students a chance to experiment and explore color mixing on their own before we even discuss Primary, Secondary, Intermediate, Warm, Cool,....and all the other color schemes we want our students to understand and be able to use in their artwork.
So much fun! The kids loved it and I loved hearing their conversations as they worked. "Hey, I just made sea green!" "Ewwww....this looks like my baby brothers diaper!" "How did you make that color? That is so cool!"
Some students chose to just paint blobs or lines as they mixed while others thought about using their mixed colors to paint images. They all were sad when clean up time arrived but by then they had used most, if not all, of the paint on their palette.
Thanks for sharing. Looks like we are both on the same journey this year, it's nice to know I am not alone. Letting go is hard, but the results have been awesome. I look forward to seeing your posts ^.^
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