Teach art concepts as you celebrate Valentine’s Day. This kids Valentine art activity teaches children about color, value, shape and overlapping . The art is inspired by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault’s colorful ABC book, “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom”, illustrated by Lois Ehlert.
Children love this rhythmic, rhyming book. The lowercase alphabet gallivants through the pages to the words, “A told b, and b told c, ‘I’ll meet you at the top of the coconut tree…”
Lois Ehlert’s colorful, cut out illustrations begin with the coconut tree standing straight and then slowly bending down farther and farther with the weight of the letters. Eventually the coconuts and the letters fall off.
Teachers:
Day 1
- Read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
to your students on the first day
Day 2
- Reread the story, then show the children different books illustrated by Lois Ehlert, such as Fish Eyes, Eating the Alphabet, Color Zoo or the ones below
- Help the children be aware of the artist’s style (paper glued on collage style, bright colors, chunky cutout shapes, overlapping shapes)
- Demonstrate how the artist cuts out shapes from paper and glues them on the base paper
Day 3
Teach the following art concepts from the picture books above:
- Color value – Keep it simple! Show the kids how the artist uses 2 shades of green, light and dark and how it makes the pictures more interesting
- Colors – bright or dull, show samples of dull colors and bright colors and how the artist chose to use bright colors in her book
- Shape – compare the big chunky shapes the artist uses with a book that emphasizes line in its images, such as Wanda Gags, Millions of Cats.
- Overlap – Introduce the word in your demonstration below…
Demonstrate the process below to the children:
- Talk about the different shapes of paper – long brown rectangle shapes and green rectangle postcard shapes (review the word rectangle too)
- Show the kids how to cut out trunks using the full length of the brown paper
- Show the kids how to cut out leaves using the full length of the green paper (any shape will work if the kids keep them big, I tell them to make the shape bigger than their hands)
- It is tempting to cut out the shapes for the kids as the shapes will look more realistic but let the kids have the experience!
- Show the kids how to overlap the shapes, demonstrating gluing on a trunk, then overlapping the branches, then overlapping some hearts to complete your picture.
Kids Valentines Art Materials:
- long brown rectangular shapes for the trunks (cut brown construction paper into 4 long pieces)
- green paper in 2 different shades for the leaves (cut green construction paper in half lengthwise, then into 3″ x 4 1/2″ pieces
- 9 x 12″(or larger) paper to glue the shapes on
- a variety of cut out bright red hearts in various sizes
- felt markers
- samples of the lower case alphabet for the children to copy from if necessary
- glue sticks
- scissors
Students:
- Choose 4 or 5 leaf papers and 1 trunk paper
- Each student cuts out a coconut tree trunk shape and glues it on their paper
- Students cut out leaf shapes and glue them on their paper
- Remind the students how the artist overlapped some of her shapes
- Students choose hearts and print a different lowercase letter on each one
- Students glue some of the hearts on the tree and glue the rest in a pile on the ground
Arrange the pictures to create a colorful heart forest on a bulletin board.