Curious George Pre-K Friends: Art, Dance, Squirrels and A Birthday!

This week in art, Susan taught the children how to make wood sculptures. Every child received four different sized pieces of wood. Then Susan asked the children to arrange the wood in various ways. She had them experiment with the wood for half the class and then she gave them wood glue to make their final sculptures. The children learned that sculptures are 3 dimensional designs created with a hard material.

Jake is very happy with his sculpture! In the next few pictures, our artists are very engaged in creating the right balance of wood pieces for their sculptures.

All the children experimented with different designs until they were satisfied with their sculptures.This art project required problem solving skills as they had to arrange their wooden pieces so that the larger pieces of wood would provide stability for the smaller pieces. After the glue dried, we painted our sculptures, and they are now ready for the art show.

Emma. Saul and Daniel are very excited as they are ready to paint like Jackson Pollock. Jackson Pollock was known as "Action Jackson." He would place his canvasses on the floor of his garage,listen to jazz, and move as he dripped and splattered paint to create his abstract art.

After the children dripped and splattered paint on their pictures, we put their t-shirts on the floor. As they jumped and danced they transferred the paint from their feet to their shirts. All the children said," This is the best day! It is so much fun to paint like Jackson Pollock!!!!"

Cleaning our feet was a challenge,but almost as much fun as creating our abstract art!

Amelia and Briana splattered the paint on their faces. Being a good artist can be quite messy!

When we had our art talk about Jackson Pollock we compared his abstract painting to a still life . To make our still life paintings, we had an orange, two apples, a banana, two candle sticks and a tray.The children chose the objects they wanted to paint and arranged them on a tray. We also discussed size, shapes, color and space as they painted." Is an apple only red?" " Is a banana only yellow? " " What size do I make them, so they will fit on my tray?"

Noor chose our Shabbat candle sticks, "How do I make them?' " What shape do you think they look like?" "Tall rectangles!" This art project required many visual development skills, as well as gross and fine motor skills. The children painted their trays first, so they would know how much space they had to add their objects. They used different sizes of brushes to paint and blend colors.

The class learned about Pablo Picasso. You can see our gallery outside our classroom. As with many of our projects, we add a literacy component. As Patrick studies Picasso's painting of a woman crying, we asked him as well as the other children to tell us why was the woman crying? Their answers are in the Picasso gallery.

On Friday, we learned about an artist named Joe Mangrum. All the other artists are very famous,but they are no longer living. We wanted to introduce an artist that is living. Joe Mangrum lives in Brooklyn. He is known for his sand paintings. He makes his designs on sidewalks because he enjoys communicating with people. He likes to use sand because he can pour, drop, or throw it. We gave the children several colors of sand and spoons. It was interesting to see the different techniques and color combinations that they used to make their sand art.

Shelly rescued three baby squirrels from our playground. On Thursday, she brought the squirrels into our classroom so that the children could watch her feed them. The children were fascinated by the baby squirrels, and they had a lot of questions for Shelly.

Lisa, Briana's mom, came to show us another kind of art, ballroom dancing. She and her dancing partner performed three dances for all of the pre-k classes. All the children wanted to take a picture with our "dancing stars!"