Future Van Gogh's?

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Ha... not in my class!!!!

I absolutely love creative art. You know, where you give the kid some material, let them get crazy, and then have them tell you what it is...

The problem is a lot of kids can't tell me what they are drawing. If they respond at all they might say something like "black paint". Although I think that this creative artistic form is very important for my little growing minds I also find great value and importance in more realistic paintings. I realized that if a student is given the write tools, a good model, and very explicit directions they are able to come up with a picture that actually looks like something. 

Aren't these great?! I was so impressed with my students. 

The next step is to get them to make realistic paintings without a model and tell a story about their painting using a compete sentence. Maybe we can get there by May?!

Better Late Than Never... Fall Fun

Okay, so it's clearly not fall time, in fact, its starting to feel a lot like spring here, even though it's still February. But, I realized I never posted pictures from my classroom in October, so enjoy...

Spider Hats- Fine Motor Skills, Art, Shapes

Pumpkin Shakers Filled with Beans- Sensory, Art

Dramatic Play Area- Farmers Market

Fake and real fruits & veggies, grocery lists, grocery ads for cutting coupons, cash register

Fall Leaves- Marble Paint

Corn- Art, Sensory, Fine Motor

Produce Signs- Spelling, Handwriting 

Paper Flowers- Art, Fine Motor

 Egg Basket- Math (counting)

Calendar- Counting & Patterns

Halloween Necklaces- Fine Motor, Math

Pumpkin People- Art, Fine Motor, Shapes

Harvest Market Bulletin Board- Giant Hay Stacks- Fine Motor (cutting) 

Background- Veggie Prints (bell peppers, potatoes, pumpkins, celery) 

Beautiful Things

I get so tired of the same art projects over and over again. It seems like every art project we do includes construction paper or water colors. This year I am on a mission to give my students opportunities to create art with as many different medias as possible.

I got the great idea from a co-teacher to create a "Beautiful Things" bucket. At the beginning of the school year I sent home a brown paper bag with each student. The only directions were to fill the bag with any thing they were willing to part with and that they thought was beautiful. We received bags full of stickers, scrapes of materials, old wrapping paper, bows, greeting cards, and even a pair of old pajamas!

Once we had collected all of the "Beautiful Things" we put them in our sensory table and did a sorting activity. The students sorted all of the items by color into smaller bins.

Now, anytime we have free choice art the students can use the "Beautiful Things" as an art tool. Adding a collage aspect to the students' art has been great. 3D art is always fun and creative and the students enjoy using items in new ways.

I have also used the "Beautiful Things" for more structured activities and lessons. As a class, we created a "Kaleidoscope of Beautiful Things" for our wall. The students matched "Beautiful Things" with colored hexagons and glued items on. Then, we arranged the hexagons to look like a giant kaleidoscope. The students used water colors to decorate the borders.

The students love looking at the giant kaleidoscope through their mini-kaleidoscopes. This collage art has been a big hit, everyone who visits our room comments on how great it looks, and the kids loved making it!

Little Photographers

One of my goals this year is to introduce my students to all forms of art. Often times, as teachers, I think we forget about art that doesn't somehow include construction paper, paint, glue, or scissors.

For this lesson I showed my little learners books with photography. I explained that photographers are artists, too. Then, throughout the week, each student was able to use my camera to take pictures of anything they thought was interesting, beautiful, or cool. I printed the pictures and made a great book for our school lobby.

The kids had so much fun being a photographer for a day. Their pictures encouraged a lot of conversations and the students love sharing their pictures with anyone who walks in the classroom door.

These are a few of my favorites. I love the interesting angles and shadows.

There Are Plenty of Fish in the Sea...

I live in the desert. I can teach lessons about cacti and coyotes in my sleep. Although I love the desert, it is always so fun to teach lessons about topics not so familiar to me or my students.

For our "Relationship"theme we read "Rainbow Fish and the Whale" by Marcus Pfister. I love this book and it sparked so much imagination and creativity in my little learners.

For a circle time activity, the students tasted 3 different goldfish (although I think the flavor is the same and only the color is different)! Then the students colored a fish their favorite color and matched it to the same color fish bowl. Then we had a discussion about the results using the words more, less, least, and most.

We made 3D sea shells by mixing shaving cream, tempra paint, and glue. The students LOVE using this on their artwork and it looks so cool when it dries!

We also made rainbow fish using 3 different size triangles. First, we did a lesson on shapes and triangles and sorted small, medium, and large. The kids decorated their fish any way they wanted, using different materials we set out.

We made 2 different types of jellyfish. My favorite was made with bubble wrap and tempra paint. The kids sponge painted the whale and the coral. We also made handprint crabs and water colored the border. Even with all the fun sea creatures, the biggest hit was taking sand from the playground to create the ocean floor. It's always the most simple activities that are the favorites! 

Other activities we did with this unit included plastic fish with water in the sensory table, felt board fish scenes, and fishing for shapes and colors.