A New Year, New Playdough, A New Unit !

New purple play dough ... what could be more enticing to start the new year?  

The girls have made an incredible cake!  It is really hard to see, but there are small gems and happy face manipulatives as well as tiny pieces of hardened pink playdough throughout this cake.  They worked diligently to build this, and just as industriously to pick out all the tiny pieces!

And look at all the cookies.    You can see fine motor improvement here since Suri and Noor were able to keep the shape of the cookie, even when transferring the cookie to the tray.

We introduced the art unit by hiding some thought provoking objects in the rice.  Each child had a chance to dig in, pull out one object and then tell us how that object could pertain to art.  Watching the kids really listen to each other and brainstorm together if someone got "stuck" was great----they have grown so much!

Next we asked the children to sort themselves according to the object they had in their hands.  Briana and Govind have things which can be tied.  Categorizing and finding common attributes in objects is an essential aspect of organizing one's thoughts.

Alex and Saul have items which make music.

Here are objects which  we typically think of as  making art.

Photography is an art as well!  Don't forget to be helping your child with the photography "homework"!

Charlotte and Noor are working on a collage.  After gluing down the materials they selected,   each child gave us a word which described the texture or appearance of something on their collage.  This is another way we encouraged the children to think about common attributes.

Before displaying the collages, we felt each one needed a "frame".   You can see Jake is tracing a record.  Want to feel old.....no one even knew what it was....they all guessed it was a giant CD!

Calder mobiles

Alexander Calder was an American artist, best known for his moving sculptures.   To make our own Calder inspired mobiles, we used wires and pipe cleaners as well as feathers, beads, scraps of paper and whatever objects the children could find in the scrap box.  This activity provided the children with another way to apply fine motor skills to design.  They twisted wire, strung beads, and poked holes in paper and foil.  When you come into our room, look up!  Our Calder gallery is impressive!

We took a walk to the Sanctuary to see the beautifully colored windows there.    Then we read about the famous Jewish artist, Marc Chagall, and the stained glass windows he created.

A close look at the windows revealed the designs within each piece of glass and the black metal lines separating the colors.

Back in the room we made our own Chagall inspired art.

We used contact paper, tissue paper and very thin black strips.

As with all our art, there's no "right or wrong",  just the artist's creative design.