three kittens: painting with yarn

Here is another art table set up we had during our week of The Three Little Kittens. Painting with yarn!

 

Large paper was set out with a tray and some paint. The children selected the paint colors as a group before getting down to business. I explained that instead of paintbrushes we would be using yarn. I did not go into anymore detail than that. I did however, fold the paper in half to see what the children would do and/or say about the crease.

 

Funnily enough, no one said anything about the crease. They just sat down and got to work. Some did one dribble of yarn while others switched to mittens or just popped their hands into the paint.

We had done some symmetrical pictures before in class so the children knew about the painting on one side aspect of this project. In different art books they would suggest you place your yarn on the paper, fold it in half then gently pull the paint ladden piece of yarn out to create a squiggle pattern. Some of the children popped their yarn down onto the paper, folded, then smoothed their hands over the paper. Later in the day, I asked what would happen if we pulled the string out before unfolding the paper? One enterprising young one tried it and this is what happened.

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.

the three little kittens: painting with wool

For our second round of all things mitten I brought in a variety of other mitten titles which included this sweet little book that introduces the origins of wool (albeit in a somewhat roundabout way). I thought I would talk about wool and fibers a bit more than I did back when we stitched together our own mittens. This time we brought out our basket of wool pieces and then added a variety of bits of roving. The children then placed their pictures into a zip close bag. We added warm water and a squirt or two of dish detergent, sealed the bag and got to smooooooshing. After that we used our pool noodle pieces as rolling pins and rolled a bit more for good measure before picking up the bags and squeezing them. I had to bring the art home with me for rinsing as we do not have hot water at work (a microwave easily heats up water for us when we need it). I rinsed the art in hot water working the fibers in a bit more then lay them out to dry.

 

Some wool pieces held onto the roving better than others but overall we had success! The higher the wool content the better grab you will have. The blue one in the center there had only 60% wool and many of the fibers just rolled off. The one on the right was 100% wool and the fibers worked themselves in quite nicely. The children really enjoyed the process and the parents really enjoyed the product!

the three little kittens: painting with mittens

 

We had two weeks of mitten fun in our classroom. It was all mittens all the time. Our mitten painting accompanied The Three Little Kittens and after they mittens were all paint-goopy, the kiddos got to wash them in a tub of soapy water.

I made our mittens out of a sweatshirt I picked up from the thrift for $2. I used the patterns we made from when we stitched our own mittens and zipped these through my sewing machine. These will get double play next year when we read The Mitten. I also made some from my very favorite now-retired orange muppet sweater...sigh. I set up the table with paper, trays for paint, and a shallow basket full of mittens so that the children could pick out the mitten they wanted to use.

 

After the children chose their paint colors they got work. There was a lot of investigation even before the first print was made.

 

Some made prints across their paper (after asking for more paint). They would comment on how the colors looked on the mitten versus their paper and they would tell me how their hands felt warm in the mitten but cool when the paint seeped through. We talked about how two weeks before we used mittens in our water tray when there were big blocks of ice in it and how at first our hands were protected and warm but then the water seeped in and our hands got cold.

 

It was really fun to watch the variety of techniques the children used for this project. Some chose just one or two colors to start but kept adding more as they painted. Some made prints while other used their mitten hands as paint brushes swiping and dragging the paint across their paper. They had a lot of fun and took these home right away as well so sadly I have no finished photos.