Kindergartners are developmentally ready to delve into higher level painting activities, moving past the traditional preschool finger paint. Start the year off with an introductory session, helping your new students better understand the medium and the science of color. Use the three primary colors of red, blue and yellow to create the secondary colors, orange, green and purple, as a beginning activity to acquaint the children with color theory. Add in white to build lighter hues and black for darker shades. Encourage the children to explore and experiment in a purposeful way. Make abstract paintings that showcase color mixing and allow the students to build textures as they add layers of paint.
At its most basic, print making involves creating multiple images from one picture or object. Although it may be tempting to try something fancy with wood or linoleum blocks, kindergartners are beginning art students and should start with simple materials. Give the students art trays filled with small pools of tempera paint and a variety of objects, such as plastic bottle caps, ping pong balls or even small toy cars. Invite the students to dip the objects into the paint then press them onto a blank piece of construction paper in repetitive patterns. As an alternative, take the class outside and give the children tennis balls to dip and bounce into paint for motion-filled prints or collect leaves to paint and press onto fall-colored paper. Connect both of these activities to science, with the tennis ball prints as a beginning physics lesson and the leaf prints tying into nature.
After your kindergartners have discovered the wonders of basic printing, they may be ready to try a simple Styrofoam print. Students can use toothpicks or the edge of a craft stick to draw a design onto scratch foam. These thin sheets of Styrofoam are available at most arts and crafts stores. Tie this art activity into a math lesson by asking the students to draw geometric shapes or repeating patterns onto the foam. Use a brayer to roll paint across the foam, making sure that the students do not fill in the lines. Press a blank piece of construction paper on top and roll a clean brayer over the top to transfer the image. Peel the paper off of the Stryrofoam printing plate and repeat for multiple pictures.
Art history is not just for high school and college students. Teach your kindergartners about some of the most famous painters and printers through a hands-on art activity. Set up a painting area outdoors with easels or on a covered work surface to paint like Monet and the Impressionists, invite your students to make soup can prints like Andy Warhol or take an abstract approach and make a messy Jackson Pollock painting.