Kindergarten Art Sub Plans | Shape and Mondrian

Kindergarten Art Sub Lessons Idea on Shape and Mondrian

***This original post was based on a blog named This Mama Makes Stuff, but that blog no longer exists.***

This art lesson, in the blog, This Mama Makes Stuff, teaches shape, Mondrian, and oil pastels to kindergarten, but it could convert well to an elementary art sub lesson. Regular crayons would easily replace oil crayons. (I would not leave oil crayons for a sub.)

In this lesson, Carrie is teaching kids about shape; tracing a shape; and the art of Mondrian.  If you like including art history references, this is a good choice.  

Photo used under Creative Commons https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/

If you are interested in kindergarten art lessons that utilize shape, you might be interested in this one at my TPT Shop: Art Sub Lessons.  It is a directed drawing of a bird with patterns and flowers, in which students draw a variety of simple shapes to create the picture.  Easy to teach with beautiful outcomes.

Art Sub Plans - Silly Sundae Preview

Art Sub Lessons "Silly Sundae"

Find relief when you have an emergency absence. Writing lesson plans for a sub when you are in a rush, feels horrible. Don't stress out when you don't need to.  I have complete no-prep lesson plans already fully formed for you.

This is a preview of my art sub lesson called "Silly Sundae." I thought you would get more information from a preview of this lesson than just from one or two images. Find this fun elementary lesson at my TpT Shop: Art Sub Lessons. 














This lesson is no prep and can be taught by anyone.  All someone needs to do is to show each page; read the script, and follow the directions. Subs love my lessons because there is a lot of content and they will keep the students engaged for the entire class period.  

Silly Sundae - Elementary Art Sub Plans

Silly Sundae - Art Sub Plans

This art lesson for kids is easy to teach. Substitute teachers only have to read the script; ask the questions; and show the pictures.  It requires no prep. This lesson gives students an opportunity to use their imaginations and create a fun product that they have never seen before. 

A no-prep lesson, it uses the most basic supplies: pencil, crayons or markers, and paper.

Check it out at the TPT shop: Art Sub Lessons.

Landscape with Patterns - Art Sub Plans

Patterned Landscapes for Elementary Art Sub Plans

Here are some visuals for a landscape lesson that anyone could teach. It could be great for an art sub.

I have drawn 4 stages of a patterned landscape lesson that you are welcome to use in a lesson with your own students.

Here is a video that you could use with older students.  Patterns and Landscape Video.

Other Lessons Idea on my Blog about Pattern

Easy Art Lesson for Elementary and Middle School

Put a Pattern on It

Complete Lesson at My TPT Shop: Art Sub Lessons

The Colorful Art of Bruce Gray

***Originally I had linked to a lesson about patterned landscapes on a site called "Relief Teaching Ideas," but that site no longer exists.

Secret Rooms and Hidden Passageways

Art Sub Plan - Secret Rooms and Hidden Passageways

Before I got a job teaching art, I taught fifth grade.  I taught my class art when I could and tied it into our lessons.  When I taught the pyramids, my students drew imaginary interiors to the pyramids. They were enthralled, and so excited to share their drawings.  I have been meaning to recreate that experience as an art sub lesson for years.  Finally, I did it.

This is a lesson I named, "Secret Rooms and Hidden Passageways." Students look at a variety of hidden spaces in artwork; in history; and in imaginary images.  They then create their own space with trap doors, hidden rooms, secret hallways, and all manner of spaces that are tucked away.

You may find it in my TpT shop:  Art Sub Lessons

Dog Party - Preschool and Kindergarten Art

Preschool and Kindergarten Art Sub Plans

Here is a sweet idea for preschool and kindergarten that I had not seen before.  The lesson she created is for preschool. Here's a look at what they did.

She bases the lesson on Go, Dog, Go to have students create a dog party.  The idea came from Collage Mama's Itty Bitty Blog: A Big Dog Party.  

Take a look at the illustration from the book.

The original lesson has students using paint. Paint wouldn't be a medium you should leave for a sub unless you know the capabilities of the sub, but crayons will work nicely.  Students will love hearing the storybook read to them.  Likely, it will be a favorite.  So, let your sub read that book to your students and then have the students draw their own dog party.

Read "Collage Mama's" blog post for more ideas on this lesson.  

Insect Mandala - STEAM/STEM - Art Sub Lessons

Art Sub Lesson Plans for STEAM | Art and Math

Cool Classroom Stuff’s TPT shop has an art activity that could be used with an art sub, a center, or an early finisher activity. This could be used by elementary, middle, or high school students.  Create Insect Designs with Radial Symmetry - STEM/STEAM

This activity may be set up as a classroom learning center; an activity for early finishers; or as a teacher or sub led lesson.

This PowerPoint includes:

-Four drawing templates featuring spacing guidelines and lightly drawn insects. (Butterflies, spiders, crickets, and bees.)

-One drawing template featuring spacing guidelines without insects so that students may draw their own insects.

-Five sample drawings, showing a variety of media. They may be hung in the class as visuals for a lesson or hung in a learning center. 

-One sheet with a composite of the sample drawings that may be hung in a learning center.

-One sheet of sample ways to divide a circle into a design of radial symmetry.

-Three sheets that include information about radial symmetry and directions on how to do the design.

The designs may be created with pen, crayon or marker.

Flower Mandala Worksheets - STEAM -

STEAM - Math and Art Lesson

The TpT shop, Cool Classroom Stuff, has a fun art activity for elementary or middle school. It could be used for subs, centers, or early finishers. It includes circle templates that are divided to help design symmetrical floral designs. There is a template for creating a design to a Mother’s Day card as well as one for a larger design.

This radial symmetry lesson is a STEAM lesson as it integrates math and art.

It could be used by elementary and middle school students.

Middle School Art Sub Plans | Name Designs

Abstract Name Designs as Middle School Art Sub Plans

Here's an idea you might use for an art sub or art relief lesson. If you show the visuals provided in this blog post by  Betsy Morningstar, and add a few directions, your middle schoolers might be able to do this one.  Betsy gives step-by-step instructions, so she has provided a lot for you already.  

I would suggest that you make one art visual for each step and include directions. If the sub teacher cannot draw, these visuals should be descriptive enough. The sub can just show each visual, one at a time, and then post them on the board.

You need to do a little prep work, but not a lot of brain work.  Whew!  Yay!  It's a nice lesson even if you don't save it for an absence.

STEAM Art Sub Lesson with Insects

This lesson was created with an art sub in mind. All of the directions have been included for their ease of use. There are multiple ways to use it. It may be printed out so that the sub may present it up close on paper or shown as a PowerPoint presentation.
It integrates science with art in an “ugly bug ball.” Including art history rounds this out even more!

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The lesson begins with a discussion about masterpieces featuring insects by the artists Balthasar van der Ast, Nicolaes de Bruyn and then William Heath-Robinson. The lesson then leads the students to creating an imaginary scene of insects at a party. Each slide includes questions and statements for the students to think about including in their drawing.

I have taught this lesson to all levels, K through Fifth. My subs who have used this lesson have left feedback that they and the students thoroughly enjoyed the lesson.

I hope that this will be a well loved lesson for you and your students and that it helps you when you are in need of a sub lesson. 

The materials needed for this lesson are the most simple: paper, pencils and crayons or markers. Here's what another buyer had so say about that: "Great lesson to leave for a sub as everything needed was included and the prep was minimal and used things commonly found in the art room. "

Here's a comment from a buyer:  "The kids produced wonderful drawings and images. The sub used the plans for my intermediate groups grades 3-5 and she loved working with the kids as the plans were so meticulously laid out!"

You may find this lesson here:  TPT Shop: Art Sub Lessons

Bugs and Insects - STEAM Art Sub Plans

Bugs and Insects - STEAM Art Sub Lessons

Now that spring is here, people are interested in nature art lessons. Here are some related to bugs and insects.

Here is one on TPT that was written easy enough to be taught by anyone; art teacher, sub, classroom teacher, or random person off the street.  Ugly Bug Ball

This one is also on TPT.  It could also be taught by anyone. A multipurpose lesson, it could be used as a center activity, an early finishers activity, or an art sub lesson.  Create Insect Designs with Radial Symmetry - STEM/STEAM

This is a coloring/doodle/patterned Monarch Butterfly activity on TPT.

The images in this blog post are great.  As an upper elementart art sub lesson, you could do some step by steps of how to draw a simple insect and add a pattern chart.  Kids could do some beautiful drawings with crayons or markers. This is over at Laura Kelly's blog, Me and My Inklings.

Here's another good one with lots of visuals and instructions.  Still, for a sub, you might want to add a few more step by step visuals unless you have a person who is comfortable doing simple shape drawings.  I would also keep the lesson to just crayons or markers.  It is a nice lesson.  Visit the Laugh Paint Create blog.

KinderArt, always a good place to check out lessons, has a lesson called Bug In A Jar. It was written for middle school art, but could be adapted,  I'm sure.

Crayola is always a good place to get ideas. Often there are plans on their site  you could use as well. This one would need more detailed directions for a sub, but you could write up some step by step ones that would work with this. Crayola

Birds and Birdhouses | Kindergarten Art

Birds and Birdhouses Kindergarten Art Sub Plans

People are always seeking art sub plan ideas for kindergarten and first grade. Here is a project that you could easily turn into a sub lesson for both.  She has complete instructions too.  These are drawn from the most basic shapes. Kindergarteners could easily follow along. And any sub should be able to lead them. 

Check out this lesson from Ms. L's Art Room.

If you are interested in other kindergarten art sub lessons with directed drawings of birds, check out this blog post:  Kindergarten Bird Lessons

Kindergarten Art Sub Lessons | Imaginary Travel

Kindergarten and First Grade Art Sub Lesson

One good place to check when you need art sub lessons is KinderArt.

Here's an elementary art lesson that they recommend for ages 5 - 8.  They include a short write up of a lesson with a sample art work. Your sub would probably appreciate some supplemental material such as picture books that go with the theme. It is a sweet little lesson you can leave for your sub if you have time to add a few more visuals and maybe a book to go along with it.

Here's one of mine that has a similar theme, but there 17 pages with visuals; a script for the sub to follow; and instructions. 

Here are a couple of comments from teachers who have used this lesson:

"As a regular classroom teacher tasked with teaching art I love your lessons - makes me more confident that I am sharing some art insight."

" Great lesson for subs - easy, engaging, and very relevant in the art room! My sub loved it, and the kids did too. They all wanted to finish their images the next week."

Find my lesson is at TeachersPayTeachers shop: Art Sub Lessons.

Kindergarten Ideas for Art Sub Plans

Kindergarten Art Sub Plans Ideas

As an art teacher, I always found kindergarten to be a tough grade to write art sub plans for. Thinking up lessons that would be simple enough for any random sub to teach took a lot of planning. Sometimes it took a lot of prep too.

After I retired, and art subbed for a while, it reinforced my thinking that I better have a lot planned to keep a class of kinder kids, engaged. I don't mind singing and dancing and doing a lot of movement activities. Little kids are usually up for as much of that as you can provide. After as much of this as I could do and keep them interested, I would do a super simple art lesson.  No cutting.  No gluing. No paint.  And I would try to find lessons that were "no fail."

I would also have videos on hand for when kids would start finishing up their work. The early finishers would clean up, put their work away, and do whatever they needed to do at the end of a lesson.  Then, they would come to the floor and watch videos that I had previewed and thought were fun. I tried finding art videos that the students would like, but mostly the videos needed to be fun.

I do, by the way, have a blog with videos I have previewed.  Art Room Videos  I don't tend to it much anymore, but there are a lot of good videos in there. Some are great artsy ones and some are just pure entertainment for crowd control.

I would suggest that you have sub ideas on hand for kinder lessons.  Those were always the hardest to plan for me.  You might look around at this blog and save some ideas.  I will go back and tag the ones "kindergarten" that seem appropriate.  Print some things out. Go check out some ideas on TpT. I have a shop but there are plenty of others too.

Good luck and take care!

Art Sub Lesson Idea - Doodles

Art Sub Plan Idea - Doodles

Here is an easy lesson project from Andrea and Jantje at KinderArt.  They have given you examples and instructions, so if you know your sub has a skill for just teaching, they could totally follow this!

Check out the blog post here:  Doodles: Drawing Lessons for Elementary School Children

Here's a blog post about the work of a famous artist, that looks like doodles, but is actually more thought out than that.  Visit this blog post about the artist, Reggie Laurent. 

Reggie is renowned for his use of color.  

Check out the webpage for his original artworks here:  Laurent Originals

You can buy an art sub plan about Reggie and his art at my TPT shop: The Colorful and Fun Paintings of Reggie Laurent 

Through this art activity, students learn about geometric and organic shapes and how Laurent uses them in his abstract paintings. They then create a drawing of their own, based on Laurent’s work.

The lesson contains full directions for teachers and students. There are many photos of paintings by Reggie Laurent and visuals of student samples. There is a link to a YouTube video about the artist, but it is not necessary for teaching the lesson. (All photos of Reggie Laurent's work have been used with the permission of the artist.)