guided drawing: watercolor butterflies

paint with straws

ice play

We dumped a large bag of ice into our sensory bin, then added a couple of cups of liquid watercolor with eye droppers. This entertained the kiddos for almost an hour!

mini watercolors with preschoolers

The children painted up these mini masterpieces to go along with our Mother's Day gifts. I cannot post enough how much I love liquid watercolors and kiddos!

We do a lot of painting in my classroom. Much of the time what begins as a glorious riot of color ends as a thick blob of brown. Even the watercolors tend to get so crazy-mixed on their paper that the color is one big muddy mess and the paper has been carved into by the immense pressure three year olds feel a paintbrush needs to have applied to it. This is a process that most all children who paint go through and it while it needs to be played out I also feel young ones can learn and develop gentle nuances when it comes to painting special pictures or with special materials.

I manage this by introducing with awe in my voice how very special the paint or paintbrush or even paper is. These mini masterpieces were created using liquid watercolor fro Colorations. The brushes used were your run-of-the-mill classroom brushes but the paper, aah the paper is super fancy heavy weight watercolor paper (I cannot remember the weight or the name). I only bring out the special paper for special projects and the children know this and treat it with much reverence. By keeping the size of the paper small, the children can focus on creating their masterpiece without tiring out attempting to cover the entire surface of their paper. Before we begin we talk about colors and wonder what the receiver's favorite color is (this is a really great exercise in thinking about others and what they might like. There are many a-ha moments when the children realize that they like pink but their Mom may like yellow. There is a great deal of dialog that follows when we talk about what others may like or enjoy). From there we talk about cool colors or warm colors and develop a two to three color palette that when mixed will not be muddy. When we paint on our watercolor paper I do not water down the liquid watercolors but allow them to be used in their full strength. We place the colors into a small white plastic paint palette which we only use alongside our special paper. Their creations never fail to make me swoon. I cannot wait to delve into the special materials with my new group of students!

stormy collage art

 

This is what happens when I set out paper plates, cotton balls, glue, liquid watercolor, and eye-droppers. I also added a shake or two of glitter to the paint. The kiddos loved this process. The green tongs up there were actually a part of our pom-pom sorting activity but one of the kiddos decided to use them on the cotton balls and then their glue bottle which prompted the other children to clamor for their own tongs of course. It was fun all around and the art looks fantastic up on our wall! 

painting cloudscapes

The children in my class love to paint and we always have paint and paper on the easel ready for them. When we set up tabletop provocations we use a better quality paper primed for whichever type of paint we are going to use. When using watercolors I use watercolor paper that has been trimmed of perforations if needed. For our cloudscapes, the children drew their clouds with fat white crayons and then painted with a variety of blues and greys which had been watered down at different levels. Some of the children drew fat circles for their clouds while others scribbled circles across their paper. We had a selection of cloud photos on the table for inspiration. When using watercolors with the children we carefully explain the importance if treating the paintbrush and paper gently as well as keeping the rinse water clean so as not to muddy the colors. When the children want to do color mixing we switch out the paintbrushes and paper  and sometimes even the paint though eyedroppers make for great tools on color mixing watercolors!

shaving cream prints and shaving cream play

Forget the idea of marbling....the children in my class preferred to experiment with the paint and the shaving cream. It was available all day and a popular center, I think all of one print was actually made...two if you count the one I did.There were jars of liquid watercolor and eyedroppers scattered about. We talked about warm colors and cool colors and the children chose to have one tray of warm colors and one tray of cool colors. They were focused and intent on making sure their trays remained warm or cool. Fingers dipped into the shaving cream along with plastic spoons and measuring cups. At one point the paintbrushes came out and the children attempted to paint on top of the shaving cream. A glass of water was requested when they realized the cream would stick to their brush.  For making prints, the children dropped bits of color on top of the shaving cream then used the end of a paintbrush to swirl the colors a bit. Next a piece of paper was placed gently on top. Once the paper was removed the children noticed how completely covered with shaving cream it was. Small scraps of sturdy cardboard were used to scrape the shaving cream away revealing the marbled print underneath. It was a joyfully loud morning of investigation and experimentation.

three kittens: more mitten fun

 

 The children selected a large sheet of construction paper in the color of their choice. I drew a mitten shape onto the paper in a color of their choice then they went to town with our oil pastels. Some chose to add white paint. I wish I had pictures, they were really fun and the children love a resist project.

 

 

Here we began with some pre-drawn mittens but the children wanted to make their own so we talked about how we made out patterns for our stitched mittens. They then put their hands on the paper while we traced around them. The children added scribbles with the oil pastels and then painted over them with liquid watercolor in their choice of color. As you can see, purple is really popular in our classroom.

ice and watercolors

 For our week of The Mitten, I added ice to one of our water bins. I made the ice the night before using small plastic bowls and storage containers. I plopped it into our water bin, added a palette of caked watercolors, a dash or two of glitter, and paintbrushes.

 There were also mittens available if the children wanted to pick up the ice with mittens or not. The paintbrushes, however, were most popular.

 This young lady spent most of the day painting the ice. There were a lot of comments about the water changing color, mixing new colors, and feeling the water to see if it was still "Icy, Icy, Cold!"

Thank goodness I brought extra ice to the classroom! I really loved the dialogue that was happening between the children as they visited the table. My co-worker who shares the room with me on alternate days, added water to balloons and then had the children add color before freezing them. I did not get photos but they were really gorgeous and the children loved exploring their sculptures. I'm going to have to try that as well...perhaps when the weather warms up!

watercolor christmas trees with fingerprint ornaments

Painting with liquid watercolors is always fun. Add some quality watercolor paper and painters tape and you get a party out of it! 

 

 I had torn pieces of tape ready for the children to shape on their paper. We talked about triangles and the shape of a triangle. We talked about how a triangle has three sides and worked together to place our tape to create a triangle shape. I presented this project as one where we follow instructions. After we did our trees, the children were given free reign of the tape and painted up all sorts of fun. Some opted to keep their tape on their paper while others wanted to peel it off. All of them wanted to add as much glitter and epsom salt as we had. It was really fun!

 The paint palettes held liquid watercolor in two shades of green, yellow, and teal. The children picked the colors as a group. The focus was to paint their entire triangle with the watercolor.

 

After they filled in their triangles, they added epsom salt that had been mixed with fine glitter. I think this was their favorite part. They used it all up. I need to make more...and get more glitter.

 

 

 

The paintings were set up on the windowsill to dry. The next day they were ready to be decked out with ornaments. The children used their fingers to add tempera paint ornaments. They used a length of cardboard to stamp a trunk under their tree. We were going to add paper punched stars as well but things got busy and that never happened.

 

While the brightness of the tempera paint did notremain, the glitz and sparkle are there! Finish each tree painting by trimming paper to size (Kiddo often place their tape at the very bottom of the paper) and adding a washi tape frame.

watercolor gingerbread men

 

How could I forget our watercolor gingerbread men? The children loved drawing and scribbling with the oil pastels. I love how the liquid watercolor really covered their people, splotches and all! I used our cardboard gingerbread person as a template and fancy-pants watercolor paper. I traced the outline with an oil pastel and then cut out the gingerbread person once the paint dried. We looked at the pictures in Gingerbread baby and talked about our facial features as we painted. Here are two of our people. Aren't they fun?

our watercolor fall leaves

 

 

invisible pictures

 One morning, I handed a small group of toddlers a white crayon each. We talked about the color of the crayon and the color of the paper in front of us. When the kiddos eagerly got to drawing, they stopped abruptly with confusion on their faces.

"Mine is broken!" 

"It doesn't work!"

"I need a new one!"

I explained that their crayons did indeed work and that they were drawing invisible pictures that would show up once we added watercolor to the mix. When presented with the idea of water color, you can bet the crayons were immediately abandoned as the kiddos clamored for paint. After a little coaxing, and demonstrating how they could feel the wax on their paper, one of the three-year-olds told me she could see the crayon. That's all it took as the rest of the small group got to squinting at their papers.

 

Much scribbling was done and then liquid watercolors were passed out. 

 

 

 

 

I love the magic of children when they paint.