coffee filter art

I found a few of these ginormous coffee filters in our center's closet (I'm amazed at what one can uncover in vast amount of closets in our building). I set out watercolor paint and pipettes and we got to work coloring the filters. We worked together to color them since we only had a few.

Finding a place for these behemoths to dry was a little tricky, but a large drying rack in our atrium did the trick.

I couldn't figure out a nice place to display them in the building so I brought them outside and wove them in our fence so parents would be greeted with the children's work when they came to pick up (we dismiss from our playground). And seeing how it seems like we live in the desert and not the Midwest lately what with the drought I figured that they would last a while without fear of rain.

This is so cheerful looking it's inspiring me to think of other ways to spruce up the fence...

The end!

the sailboat project

This project came about one day when we were sitting atop our playground picnic table. The children sitting with me wanted to pretend the table was a boat. S was pretending to raise and lower the sails while I was given the assignment of swabbing the deck. I asked them if they would like to research some sail boats and create some actual props for the boat. The agreed.

After looking at some reference books the children decided that they needed a mast, an anchor, and a mainsail. We raided the recycle room and found that a push broom would make the mast, a sheer curtain could be a mainsail and a book of drapery samples would be the anchor. The table would be the hull. S remembered she needed some rope to hoist the sails so we found two different kinds.

We brought the items outside to the picnic table and quickly realized we needed some way to attach the items. Tape was quickly agreed upon so we went back in to find some masking tape.

The tape didn't work so well, so we tried glue too:

Glue didn't work either. However while the children were playing with the items they discovered that the nylon rope could be threaded through the top of broom. This reminded me of a pulley system and I pointed out that if we attached the rope to the mast we could hoist mainsail (this was a very important process for S). So we set to work on attaching the nylon to the sail with glue and staples but those didn't work either. Finally I suggested we try to sew it and brought out my little travel sewing kit. I showed S, who was very  interested, how to manipulate the needle she sewed the pieces together.

At last we experienced success. The nylon rope stretched from here to eternity (practically) which was a good thing because many children grabbed hold of the rope and started shouting, "heave-ho, heave, ho!" By this time S decided the little boat in our backyard should be our sailboat so we had moved the props over there. 

The first try was a little too zealous and the broom went flying. We made sure we stopped when the mast reached the top, although it took a few tries before we got it.

More on this project as it continues to develop! 

The end!

play-dough impressions

The children discovered that pressing objects into our play-dough left impression. Every now and again some children would return to that discovery and show me what they made. I decided to make a formal lesson for them out of this discovery, so the children helped me make a special batch of play-dough especially for the activity. We put it on the art table and then set out in search of interesting objects to press into the dough. They found bottle caps, shells, pine cones, scissors, necklaces, and other miscellaneous items from the recycle center (this photo reminded me it was time to tidy up the studio, lol)

A view of our work area:

Pressing corn:

Sometimes the dough stuck to the table so we used a spatula to loosen it:

When I asked the children what the impressions reminded them of some children were quite literal. Scissor impressions were scissors.

This one, however reminded us of an owl:

Some children noticed the pattern the objects made like circles or rectangles. Once they began to understand the particular cause and effect of their actions they made comments like, 'I want to see what happens when I use the pumpkin'.

The end!

light catchers

Recently, one of our parents was generous enough to donate a large volume of outdated software CDs. I brought them outside along with markers to color. 

Some of the children noticed that there were rainbows inside them.

We also noticed that when the sunlight hit them, it reflected onto the canopy above us. We quickly had fun 'catching' light and bouncing it all over the place.

Some of the children's thoughts:

J: It's like a flashlight

S: it's yellow like big bird

S: J's is invisible (when he couldn't see 'his light')

A: Mine has a rainbow

B: this is for your baby, Ms. Erin.

Later, I attached some of the CDs that weren't squirreled away in backpacks to a branch to make a mobile. We decided it should hang outside our window in the atrium where it could catch some direct sunlight. This is my lovely assistant hanging it for us! 

Here you can see it from the classroom: 

The end!

translucent light at the new light easel

In my effort this year to create a mini-light studio I decided to take apart my art easel and turn it into a light easel. I figured this was going to either be spectacular or an epic failure.


To begin I disassembled the boards from the easel which were warping and replaced them with Plexiglas. When drilling into Plexiglas I discovered you need to place something underneath like a wood block, so that it doesn't crack. Lesson learned the hard way.

Transparent side (more on that later):

I then covered one side of the Plexiglas with contact paper to create a translucent effect and left the other transparent.

Translucent side:

I placed Dura-Lar over the translucent side. I set out the paints the children mixed.The light source comes from an uncovered lamp under the easel. 


The effect was lovely.

The painting quickly became a hands on experience with the children using their hands as pallets to mix paints:

Later I learned that paint wont stick to Dura-Lar which ultimately is fine with me as we are process, not product oriented and the children can see the effect of the light on their paintings.

But I'm not one to give up, so I had a thought to add a layer of spray adhesive (which I applied outside due to aerosol restrictions) to see if perhaps it would provide the necessary 'bite' for the paint.

It seemed to help, though it will still flake off if you crinkle the paper. For this reason I hung their art in the 'science' window where it would be protected, and they can still see light filter through.

 We're also experimenting with adding a little glue to the paint to see if it will adhere better as well. I'll let you know when today's work dries if it was succesful or not.

The end!







 

natural play-dough dye: turmeric

I used the recipe for natural play dough dye from mini-eco and performed a little multiplication magic to adapt it so that 5 children get a large chunk to play with. 

Before class started I set the turmeric and water on a hot place and left it to reduce. I set six bowls on the art table filled with flour, salt, and cream of tartar along with tools such as spoons, whisks and sifters I purchased from the thrift store.

When B arrived, she had this to say, "Why is the play-dough on fire?"

The children took turns mixing, whisking and sifting. There weren't enough bowls and tools for everyone so some had to share. K and E were so happy to share bowls that they got upset when I offered an unused one because they wanted to mix together (YES!!)

After the turmeric water had cooled (I added a few ice cubes to speed the process along) I added the oil to their bowls. Then I slowly added the dye to their mixture a little bit at a time and they used their hands to knead the dough. If it was too crumbly we added more dye. If it was too sticky we added more flour. When the dough had the perfect consistency, we brought it to the play-dough table (we have a dedicated play-dough table that stays out all year).

While they were mixing they had this to say:

B: I'm making yellow cake!
A: I'm still making it,
N: It smells like french fries.

Not soon after we all finished I noticed a lot of play-dough was missing. It turns out some children had made the dough into cupcakes which I found baking in the oven around clean up time.

They are so interested in cupcakes that I think this will move us into project mode.

The end!

animal houses from recyclable materials

This recyclable material can be found in cases that carry glass bottles containing (ahem) adult beverages. I snatched them out of the boxes before they went in the garbage at my parent's house. It says something that my parents hardly ever even look at me strange anymore.


Anyhoo, I added them to the table while the children were playing with their animals and sure enough they became little animal houses.

There wasn't a lot of one-to-one correspondence going on and I attribute that to how tall the house walls are. I plan on disassembling them and cutting them down a bit to see if that helps. We tried to get these to stand upright but the material isn't stable enough. Perhaps if we back it with cardboard that would help. It will be interesting to see how the children use this material as I think it has a lot of potential.

The end!