'Beautiful Stuff' Collage

We're blessed to have tons of 'beautiful stuff' thanks to parent donations. Our shelves were overflowing with  materials so I decided it was time to make a collage. I set out the jars of 'stuff', glue, and paint rollers. After we covered the foam board, my instructions to the children was to 'put things where they made sense.' Colors by colors or objects by similar objects. This is what they created:

I love working with these kinds of materials because it's like unearthing treasures every time.

Close up of the left side:

Center:

Right side:

If you look really close you can see treasures inside treasures-a marble in an egg:

-beads inside a measuring cup:

-beads inside a coffee creamer lid (you have to flip the top to see):

Some of their thoughts:

-Greens go with greens and reds go with reds.
-This isn't junk, it's awesome!
-Can I take this home? I'm trying to make a hat for my friend.
-This looks like the other thing we made, but it's prettier.

our 'beautiful stuff'ed envelopes

A few years ago our center collected items from home. They were sorted by color and displayed in the hallway until the university's education students dismantled them to display their educational projects. The beautiful jars of found objects lived in a box in the closet until I dragged them back out and set them out on the table, uncapped.

This year, a parent was generous enough to drop off a case of outdated software CDs that came in little envelopes with round windows. We used the CDs to create 'light catchers' and decided to use the envelopes to display some of the 'stuff'. The children had a blast going through the containers choosing their favorite items. I had a hard time convincing them to leave the envelopes here at school for me to display.

 

Since we don't have a lot of wall space due to a copious amount of windows, I've been trying to use our vertical space to display our work: 

The end!

the ball machine part II

At our morning gathering, I ask the children where they want to go play and what they are going to do. I think I need to change my question to 'what are you want to create today since it works for all areas.

Anyway, Em decided she wanted to build another Ball Machine. Here is her creation:

The following is our conversation about the machine:

E: First, it jumps inside to get paint [left side].
Ms. Erin: Why do they get paint?
E: It get purple and black. It goes down here with the other balls [points to ramp and circle]. These balls are inside they home. They got to close they home so they all fit.
Ms. Erin: What happens over here? [points to four squares]
E: They go back up here and get more paint.

Here is her drawing, painted with watercolors (MUCH more detailed than the first):

The following is her work represented with three dimentional objects using her drawing as a reference. Set out a plethora of collage materials she could choose from to create with:

Her final product:

Em is definitely interested in the balls being painted, so I plan to continute from that angle.