painting with holiday bows

We painted with our bow brushes using our tempera paints on fingerpaint paper. The glossiness of the paper gave our paintings a fun bit of shine. The children enjoyed painting with our bow brushes and took it upon themselves not to mix the paint up. I had done this before years ago with the children dipping their bows in paint. I wish I had thought of gluing them to craft sticks but then again it was so long ago you needed to save your popsicle sticks if you wanted some. So happy I found the idea and this pin. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

gingerbread houses and people

The children got an opportunity to explore a recipe. I wrote out a recipe card using drawings and explained the different tools we would be using. Mixing cups, measuring spoons, and ingredients were discussed. Our goal was to make puffy paint and so we did!

Each child got a cardboard cutout of a house and a gingerbread person and go to squeezing their designs. The challenge in this project was to NOT squeeze to much as the paint was pretty sloopy and too much paint would prevent our house and people from being "baked" in our microwave.

 

We used this recipe now pinned to pinterest and the children added a dash of cinnamon and spice as well. Once they were ready we popped 'em in the microwave for 30 seconds to cook/puff the paint.

 

 

Once their houses and people were dry (the next day) we got our our squeezy glue bottles and added candy accoutrements.

 

Good enough to eat! Which did happen when a younger sibling spied upon a becandied house. We later discovered it minus a skittle or two.

more painted leaves

 I stitched this garland of fall leaves together to decorate our classroom. The children loved seeing their art hanging like this over the entryway to our kitchen. Along with the watercolor leaves we did some squishy paint leaves. I think I may like these even more.

 The children selected and squeezed their own paint on top of their watercolor leaf shapes. They also selected which leaf they wished to paint. Sometimes painting up two or three more.

 After squeezing their paint, they placed a different sheet of paper over their work are and got ready to smoosh!

 They smooshed and rubbed and rubbed and smooshed!

 

Aren't the colors fantastic? We used bottled tempera from Discount School Supply. Such nice happy colors!

spin art is never too old: making spin art acorns

 

 

 

pumpkin painting exploration

 The children in my class painted up wee pumpkins the week of Halloween. These were a work in progress for the week and had many stages of nifty going on.

 

We began with paint and paintbrushes. The children chose their colors and began painting. We stuck with one palette for each child as we were working on color mixing.

We discussed warm colors and cool colors.

 

I snapped these photos during the first round of paint. Love how the colors mix on the pumpkin itself.

Glitter was added then painted over then added some more.

 

Then the squeeze bottles came out and more exploration was had.

 

It's a bit of a beautiful mess isn't it?

apple printing for our apple unit

Most schools will do some sort of apple for fruit theme during the school year and many will do fruit printing as a part of their art and enrichment in the classroom. It's fun, it's simple and for the most part it is pretty.

Aside from the pretty though there is a lot going on. Firstly there is language. When I set up the activity thechildren often run over and ask questions:

What's that? What's this? What are you doing?

After they ask questions, we cut the apples open and talk about what we see, smell, taste, and feel.  They often tell me they have apples at home or they like green paint or that they have a dog.

The process of dipping the apples into the paint, lifting them and then pressing them to paper is not as easy for a three year old as it is for an adult. The apples are cold and wet, which often surprises the children and many will not wish to continue. In those instances brushes and or sponges are offered up and made available. Other colors are added if the children ask for them but for this particular project we chose red and green to go with the apples we had on our flannel board.

Some children get the hang of it quickly and happily press away while others make a few prints then discover how cool and wet the paint is in their hands discarding the apples and diving in with all fingers squishing and swiping the paint on their paper. Other children are happy to print with the fruit but do not want paint on their hands. I set out a damp sponge for them to wipe their fingers on. Sometimes the sponge becomes the brush and sometimes it is used to wash the paintbrushes.

What I love about setting up any project or center is seeing how the children approach it and what they end up doing with it. It's never dull, that's for certain!

going with the flow....

I set up some shaving cream and a couple of primary colors for some color mixing fun. The plan was for some shaving cream exploration with the children using their hands and sharing a piece of paper. One of my kiddos did not wish to touch the shaving cream and so the paint brushes came down and everyone was happy.

make a spin art raccoon!

During the first two weeks of school our theme was The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn. We talked a lot about school and feeling and raccoons...

One of the projects we did was to make our own spin art raccoons. First up was a discussion about the different colors a raccoon's fur might be and pulled out some paint to match. We then selected some scrap pieces of construction paper from our scrap box and gathered up our salad spinner and coffee filters. I had also cut out an assortment of triangles and circles to complete our project.

The children placed three coffee filters into the basket of the spinner, we use three because of the viscosity of the paint. It's weight and thickness tend to smoosh the filter into a corner and then all you have is a mess of coffee filter. Using a short stack anchors the filter down and allows the paint to spin about. We used a washable tempera for or paint.

Once the filter was in the basket, the children selected the colors they wished to use and gave great big squirts of paint into the basket (with a little help from me a the bottles were new and not easily squeezable).

 

Next up was placing the lid onto the spinner which is not as easy for a three year old as it is for an adult, and then turning the handle that spins the basket. This part was really fun and interesting to see how each child would approach it. Our spinner has a crank handle and so the children needed to figure out how to hold the basket with one hand and turn the crank with the other. Some children grew frustrated and asked for help.

 

 

After a few checks and maybe more squirts of paint, the children removed their raccoons-to-be and added features.  The thickness of the paint took place of any glue we would need and so eyes and stripes and noses were added by simply selecting their preferred shapes (we used a variety of raccoon images from various flashcards as inspiration) and pressing them down onto the paint with their fingers.

 

 

They were quite proud of their raccoons and really into the spinner and so we made another spin art bit just for fun.