Lesson plan Kindergarten Art & Music
Invisible Water on Vervain Lane: A Crayon-Resist Rain Picture
A 35-minute kindergarten art lesson in which children draw a drying puddle in white crayon, then brush blue paint across the page to make the hidden water appear.
Objectives
- Students will draw with white crayon on white paper and predict what will happen when paint goes over it.
- Students will explain that water can leave a puddle and go up into the air where we cannot see it.
- Students will dictate or write one sentence naming what their painting shows.
Vocabulary
- Cloud
- A cloud is a visible mass of tiny water droplets or ice crystals floating in the sky. Clouds form when water vapor cools and condenses onto tiny particles of dust or salt in the air.
Also: puddle, crayon resist, wash
Teacher overview
Crayon resist gives kindergartners a physical experience of something they cannot see. Wax pushes watercolor away, so a mark drawn in white crayon on white paper stays hidden until a blue wash goes over the whole sheet and the mark appears. The lesson borrows that surprise to teach one water-cycle idea at kindergarten depth, which is that water leaving a puddle is still there and has gone up into the air where nobody can see it.
The scenario is a rain puddle on Vervain Lane that shrinks a little each day and is gone by Friday. Children draw the puddle and the water rising from it in white crayon, then reveal the whole picture with paint. Teachers who have never run a resist lesson should practice one sheet first, because the amount of paint matters more than the drawing does.
Plan for wet paper at the end. Clear a drying shelf or a length of newspaper along a wall before the class begins, since finished sheets cannot be stacked.
Procedure
Minutes 0-6 - The puddle that got smaller. Read aloud: "On Monday there was a big puddle on Vervain Lane. On Tuesday it was smaller. On Friday the puddle was gone." Ask children where they think the water went. Take four or five answers and write each one on chart paper without correcting any of them. Then say the answer plainly: the water went up into the air, and air can hold water that our eyes cannot see.
Minutes 6-12 - The trick with the crayon. Hold up a sheet of white paper that already has a white-crayon drawing on it and ask what children see. Most will say the paper looks empty. Brush blue watercolor across it while they watch. As the drawing appears, name what happened: the wax from the crayon pushes the paint away, so the crayon marks stay white. Tell children this is called a resist, and have the class say the word once together.
Minutes 12-24 - Drawing the invisible water. Give each child paper and a white crayon. Coach the drawing in three parts, pausing after each so everyone keeps pace. First, a fat puddle shape near the bottom of the page. Second, short curly lines going up from the puddle for the water leaving it. Third, a cloud near the top where the water gathers again. Remind children to press hard, because a light crayon line will not resist the paint. Walk the room and check that every page has all three parts before anyone paints.
Minutes 24-31 - The blue wash. Model loading the brush and pulling it side to side across the whole page in long strokes, top to bottom, without scrubbing. Children paint their own sheets. As each drawing appears, ask that child to point to the puddle, the rising water, and the cloud. This is the formative check: any child who cannot point to all three parts gets a second white-crayon sheet during choice time. Aim for at least three quarters of the class pointing correctly on the first try before moving on to the next water-cycle lesson.
Minutes 31-35 - Naming the picture. Each child tells you one sentence about the painting while you scribe it along the bottom edge, or writes it independently if able. Useful starters are "My puddle went" and "The water is going." Read three of the sentences aloud to close the lesson and set the wet sheets out to dry.
Student Handout
There is no printed page for this lesson. The drawing plan below can be posted at the front of the room as three pictures, so children can check their own work against it.
Step One. A puddle shape near the bottom of the page, drawn fat and round with a white crayon, pressed down hard.
Step Two. Four or five short curly lines rising from the top edge of the puddle, standing for the water leaving it.
Step Three. One cloud shape near the top of the page where the rising water collects.
Step Four. Blue paint brushed side to side across the whole sheet, top to bottom, one pass only.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Differentiation
Support (below grade level)
Draw the puddle outline in white crayon before class so the child only adds the curly lines and the cloud. Children who press too lightly can trace over their own lines a second time with the crayon before painting. Offer a broader brush, which makes an even wash easier to produce.
Extension (above grade level)
Ask the child to add a second puddle that is smaller than the first, then dictate a sentence saying which puddle will disappear sooner and why. Some children can also add white-crayon raindrops falling from the cloud, showing the water coming back down to the street.
ELL supports
Pair each of the three drawing parts with a gesture the whole class uses together: hands making a flat circle for the puddle, fingers wiggling upward for the water going up, and arms rounded overhead for the cloud. Accept the dictated sentence in the child's home language and add the English words puddle, up, and cloud together while scribing.
Extensions
Set a shallow tray of water on a sunny windowsill on Monday, mark the water line with tape, and check it again on Friday. The class can compare the falling line to the shrinking puddle in the story. Hang the finished resist paintings in a single row along a hallway wall so the row of blue sheets reads as one long rainy street.