Painting six ways

#1: Drizzle painting: for this I gave them three containers of tempera paint with pipettes.  I used powdered tempera mixed to a consistency thick enough to stick to the paper towels, but thin enough to run down the paper.

This girl was particularly interested in how high up on the paper she could put the paint and get it to still drip on the floor.  (Process!)

The girl who made this painting was persistently trying to make vertical lines; she said to me, in only a slightly exasperated voice, "even when I make lines across, they still drip down." 

#2: Color mixing. This activity is pretty self explanatory, but I cannot say enough about it.  They loved this activity (boys too) and created some fantastic shades.  See at the end of this section for a Bev Bos video that inspired it.  

video:

#3:  Dough Paint:  I found this in the Science Arts book.  The paint is made of equal parts salt, flour, and water, with a little paint added.  The book calls is "Sparkle Dough Paint," but I wouldn't say it actually "sparkles."  None the less it is a fun art activity.  They helped me funnel it into squeeze bottles and off they went.

Most of them chose to do "fold over" paintings, I did not suggest it, but one child did it and it caught on like wildfire.  (The term "Fold Over Painting" is borrowed from Bev Bos.

I love the one above.  It took forever to dry (three days) but I thought it was such a creative use of the materials. 

I love how this one (above) was folded at an angle to make an interesting shape.

#4:  Salad Spinner Art: This is one of everyones' favorite ways to paint at school.  All it takes is some precut paper, some liquid water colors, pipettes, and a salad spinner.  Like most of these painting options- no instructions are needed.

Add as much or as little paint as desired.

Spin for as long and and as fast as desired.

Ta- Da!

#5: Bubble Painting:  Some children a little older than my class did this project and was fascinated by making really cool designs on their paper with the over flowing bubbles but my class wasn't really interested in what was happening to their paper.  They were interested in what was happening in the cup: the bubbles building, the bubbles overflowing, the bubbles popping.  This being said, we switched from paper to paper towels so we could do more bubbles faster and clean up faster.  

#6:  Incline Painting (with cars and marbles!):  This activity was inspired by one of my favorite blogs:  Teacher Tom's Blog.  Now, mine was not as complex as Teacher Tom's, but I am not a builder, or a "tinkerer" or anything of the sort.  

My simple solution was to adjust only one side of our adjustable table.  I put a sensory pan at the bottom to catch the cars and left the roll of paper on the floor by the legs, pulling the paper over the top and cutting it off for the next group.  

This was pretty fun, and kept the boys interest for more than ten minutes!

This is like a dream! (The real winter wonderland)

Today we FINALLY had a good day to go outside! With at least four inches of snow on the ground and the tropic temperature of 28 degrees, it was a perfect day to take on the big outdoors. 

Upon going outside and taking one trip down the hill Trisha said to me "this is like a dream!"  She's right, it was. 

One of the best things, I believe about school, is the little hill in the back. There is nothing better then sledding out there on a winter day.

Most of them could spend all day just sledding.  No snowmen, no snow balls, just sledding.  Many of us adults can remember sledding as a child and I personally cannot remember many things that were much more fun than that.

 They have become experts on creating trails for themselves (and I think we have only been sledding maybe ten times this winter).  Sledding on their stomachs was new for most of them today.  Many of them were too afraid of the risk previously and preferred to remain seated on our "sleds," (kitchen trays), to sliding on their stomachs.  

climbing up the hill on hands and knees 

What I love about sledding is also that it is an experiment in traction and friction for them.  They learn (slowly) not to climb up the trails that they have made not only because the trails are slippery to climb up, but also because when they climb up them it makes bumps in the trail and so they are slowed down when sledding down the hill.  

Here you can see them traveling in groups up the hill away from the trails, using their trays as ice picks to prevent them from sliding.

Eventually, after a half an hour of sledding down the big hill they decided to try the little hill that forms a miniature valley with the adjoining large hill.  

creating a trail

Without being asked, when friends noticed Trisha working on this interesting project, they rushed over to help and collaborate.

They were successful in creating a trail on the small hill, of course, but being so short, and requiring a lot more scooting and less sliding because of the very gradual incline, as soon as it was accomplished, they moved on. 

We did have a couple children who tried to mold snow in bowls and buckets, but the snow was not the right consistency to mold, so they only made a few bowl molds.  

Happy sledding. :-)

Thinking in and out of the box (day I)

Before starting this blog I want to make sure to give credit to Teacher Tom.  It is from his blog that I had the idea for this activity, although, as you can see, he did it on boxing day (December 26) making it twice as cool as doing it in January. 


Previous to Thursday, I collected several boxes, cardboard toilet paper and paper towel tubes, and some other odds and ends. There seemed to be no limit for the possibilities of the boxes.  

Two pairs of children made side by side houses in the dishwasher boxes, adding a smaller box to the front of each "house" for more space.  In the left house was inhabited by a girl and a boy, but the girl stayed in and the boy brought her anything she asked for in the "house" and kept other children from going in.  The pair of girls who inhabited the left side were very active; they went straight to work improving their home. 

Other children had very different designs for their boxes. 

One boy pushed this box up calling it a "skyscraper" but then changing mind, calling it the "leaning tower of pizza" instead when it was accidentally propped up on another box. 

He next realized that he could move the box and use it for a basketball hoop.

Other boys wasted no time in joining the game.  

Meanwhile, other children busied themselves coloring on various types of cardboard and styrofoam.  They loved the "squeeky" sound of markers on styrofoam, and the "bumping" sound of markers on corregated cardboard. 

Little Opal colored all of the really big letters on this box. While she colored she kept saying "not O, not O, not O."  I later heard her tell her friends she was going to color O's pink and all the other letters blue- there weren't any O's though.  

Many of the colored pieces of styrofoam were especially pretty.  

While the rest of the class was coloring, Tommy up-ended one of the "house" boxes, and decided he wanted to go down the top of the chimney (box) like Santa.

"Guys! Can someone help me get in this chimney?  I can't get in it."  No one came to help, so he made a new plan.

"Miss Elizabeth, I made steps and a railing to get into the box!" Unfortunately, they fell before he ever made it to the box and a few girls....

Figured out that you could just lift up the bottom of the box and climb under.  They claimed the "chimney" as a new place to color. (Whoever said boys were better at spacial problem solving than girls?)

 The boxes underwent several different arrangements and uses.  

One group found a way to to hold on to markers and toys that kept rolling away and getting lost under boxes and other materials.  

Another child took advantage of an empty box to "read a book" that she made out of a piece of folded cardboard. 

The children could have played at this activity for hours more than they did (which is why we did it again on Friday).  To help clean up they came up with the idea of sorting the smaller pieces into boxes- styrofoam, tubes, and small boxes- an excellent system.

I will upload pictures and write about the boxes on Friday soon!