LOVE

I wanted to teach a lesson on Typography. I know this isn't typically seen as a topic for 4-8 year olds, but I know my kids watch Word World so I thought they could grasp it. I started off by showing the kids a series of company logos. My 4 helped with the example. She is starting to read short words...but she knows Red Robin, Home Depot, Target, Disneyland, etc. not by reading the text but by the way in which the words are written. I wanted the kids to know that sometimes HOW a word looks is as important as what it says. I showed them a party thank-you without showing the whole thing to see if they knew what the font indicated even though the words said "Thank-You". The girls didn't get this one, but all the boys knew right away.

We painted the word LOVE. I used this lesson from Art Projects for Kids. I showed the kids a photo of the Robert Indiana sculpture. One of the kids quickly recognized that her mother grew up near the New York sculpture and she'd seen a photo of her mom in front of this. We got ready to paint. I had pre-traced all the squares and letters. (given how long it took just to trace a number I didn't want to waste time tracing). The kids started tracing my pencil lines with a sharpie. I gave the kids one color of paint at a time and had them paint the first square yellow. Then they painted the shadow of the letter yellow. Next, they were given a bit of white to mix a tint of the yellow for the face of the letter. We repeated this for each letter. Do you notice that one of these 'Love' is different than the rest? I planned this so the kids didn't set their hand in wet paint. I had my lefty work opposite from the rest of the kids.

I think these turned out super. We used Liquitex Acrylic Colors on Canson Acrylic paper. I really enjoy seeing kids use good materials. I think the results are exceptionally better than when they just paint with that cheap strip with little tubs of paint.

One of the surprises from this lesson was a discussion on copywrite. Robert Indiana didn't copywrite his work. Maybe because he didn't...this work is so recognizable. But now, my kids want a copywrite on the bottom of every sketch they make. Too cute.

And then...I emailed this alphabet to all the moms. I wanted to see who could identify each of the letters. If you're up for the challenge, comment with how many you could identify. I got 23/26 quickly. Try not to cheat. There are versions of this with tags all over the internet. So if you're dying for the answers you can find them. Otherwise I'll email back.