It's that time again to take a glimpse into my childrens Art Studio. I have been extremely busy helping young children create authentic hands on, creative, exploratory and sensory focused Art from the Heart!
It's always a pleasure to bump into a little one on the playground and the first thing they say to me is "I want to paint!" with a big smile on their face.
My focus in the studio since the beginning of school year has been learning the interest of my students, establishing ground rules and creating a warm, fun, loving artistic environment.
Our interest thus far have been:
All About Me
Fall
Primary Colors/Secondary Colors
The children I work with vary in age so I come up with art activities that relate to their possible abilities. I scaffold lessons and activities based on classroom dynamics, physical and cognitive ability. The children I work with are from ages 6.9 months to 5 years old.
Preschoolers explored art earlier in the year by making paper dolls that represented them. During our "All About Me" theme.
They worked with color papered that was representational of their various cutltural backgrounds as well as all the other colors of the rainbow.
We worked over a period of two weeks in which we used several materials to create paper dolls.
Week One:
Designing
Gluing
And conversations about placement of facial features and specific parts of clothing.
Week Two:
Decoration with embellished objects
Buttons
Foam shapes
Glitter
Yarn
Plastic bingo chips
Neon paints
Three completed paper doll friends.
So I know you are waiting for the fun and messy part well believe it or not this is it.
Anytime wet materials are involved i.e. Glue, Markers or any type of paint there is opportunity for mess and fun. The above "paper doll" activities had lots of it with glue, materials and paints every which way!
Clean up is very important and should be an integral part of the process.
Cleaning up:
Dropping dirty paint brushes into the sink
Wiping down tables
Collection of unused materials
and hand washing
Does this look messy to you? Well it very well can be!
Our "Fall" themed apple prints.
Inspired by the literacy connection:
Title: Apple
Author/Illustrator: Nikki McClure
When I was a youngster which I will say was not that long ago. We used actual apples to make prints. Now it's important to be more conscious of food deserts, hunger and food conservation. In that effort I very rarely use food in the Art Studio.
This apple printing technique is used out of laminated paper shaped apples to create a "monoprint".
Children get to choose fall colored finger paints with a cornstarch base infused with shimmers of gold, bronze and silver.
This is a truly hands on messy fingerpaintng fun.
That is easy for all preschool age children.
I strongly believe children learn from modeling rather it be from a teacher or peers. Children also learn from exploration of cause and effect.
During our one week exploration lesson of color mixing.
We came across the literacy connection "Mix It Up" a fun messy book all about being interactive and hands on.
The author/illustrator is Herve Tullet. He has some amazing concept books about art. You should check him out.
Children practiced making the primary colors by drawing the matching color circles of the color wheel with markers.
Then completed the practice by coloring in the circles with tempera paint in liquid form and tempera cakes.
Children had fun exploring new terms from the story such as smudge and rub as it related to mixing colors.
We even came across patterns too.
As always I enjoy bringing art for the heart as an artist and a educator.
I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into my early childhood art studio.
Until next time "Live and Let Art"!
Peace
Zahirah Nur Truth
Da Artist ZNT
