January 30, 2012  by

Making Houses

Last week in art class, while the younger children explored the the paste mixing collages, the older classes worked on making “houses.” They were each given a cardboard gift box and began by discussing what types of houses they wanted to make. Their ideas were mostly about forest animal houses and fairies but there were a couple of underwater houses and even a skate ramp! Once they each decided on their concepts, they went to work using the paints, glues, scissors, and all kinds of craft materials on the table.

 Check out this skate ramp!
Here are a few more of the finished houses. Most of them asked their teacher, Jhaya, to help them write a sign for their house out of glitter glue…

I’ll soon be posting about our recent clay week, where some of the kids decided to continue working on their houses and ended up making furniture and other items to add to them.

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July 2, 2011  by

Watercolor & Oil Pastel Batik

For our watercolor week in the 1s/2s class I was planning for an ice painting and oil pastel resist project like we did in the mixed age class. Before class began I came across some extra fabric lying around and decided to experiment with an oil pastel and watercolor batik instead. I taped the fabric to a tray so that it wouldn’t move around when the kids tried to draw on it. I first offered them white oil pastels to use on white cotton fabric, which is not at all exciting to toddlers (even when I tried to explain that they would magically see their drawing appear when they painted it). Here, a big sister demonstrates the first step.

 After a very brief drawing experience, I offered the kids liquid watercolor to paint onto their work.

 Even with the light pressure of a toddler, the oil pastel still showed up and resisted the watercolor, creating a batik effect.

After trying out the batiks, I finally brought out the ice painting project-  offering them colorful oil pastels, watercolor ice paints and paper.

Eventually the kids began to collect items from the shelf to use in their paintings.

 A fun day of watercolor experiments!

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May 3, 2011  by

Flower Fabric Dying and Balloon Painting

It’s spring time and beautiful flowers are in bloom! Because flowers have so much color to offer us,  I decided to try out a flower dying technique with the older classes. I gave each child a piece of muslin fabric and a mallet. They chose some flower petals and leaves, placed them on their fabric, folded the fabric over, and pounded away.

As they pounded, the dye began to show through the muslin. When they decided they were finished, they opened it up and peeled off the petals to find their fabric filled with color.

After our fabric dying, we moved on to bigger and messier things… balloon painting! We started off painting with small air-filled balloons (for safety it was important that if any balloons popped, they were thrown away immediately). The kids dipped the balloons in paint and dabbed them on the paper, which created circular swirls of color.

Soon I brought out balloons filled with water for the kids to try out. The water added weight and movement to the balloons and were really fun to squish around!

Things began to get messy and the kids moved around the studio painting at the easels and trying out their balloons in different places.

Some of the water balloons popped and the kids decided that they wanted more water to use in their work.

I recently got some new basters and was excited to have the kids test them out!

So much fun!

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January 22, 2011  by

1s Fabric and Sand Collage

For the second week of the 1s class the children explored collage through glue and fabric. At this age, the focus is mostly on learning how to squeeze the glue- which is great for fine motor development! Squeezing glue is hard work for little hands, but it is so rewarding when the glue begins to dribble out… especially the colored glue!
After much glue practice, the children found new items to add to their collage. They especially enjoyed scooping colored sand and dumping it onto their collages. When the sand dries in the glue, it creates a rough texture to compliment the smooth fabric.


The joy of learning from an older child!
The weather has been warming up, which makes for great water/wash up time at the end of class!

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January 18, 2011  by

Working with Fabric and Glue

This week we focused on fabric and glue. I first set out a simple collage project with scraps of fabric and white glue. The children all began to carefully glue down their fabric scraps to the paper using various methods. Some glued on top of the fabric…
some glued all over the paper, then placed the fabric down…
…while others decided to stack the fabric with glue.
After this first introduction to fabric collage I soon brought out colored glue. which adds a new design element (and is much more exciting than white glue!).


As the kids made their way around the studio, they went to the easels to paint and then to the shelf to pick out more items to use with their collages.

Returning from the shelf, the children brought back glitter, animals, cars, brushes, and even scissors for cutting the fabric!




To add a new texture to the mix, I brought the children some colored sand to scoop onto their glue.




At the end of class, I brought out one more project to continue our investigation of glue and fabric… the makings for a glue batik! I saw this project on the Artful Parent and was eager to try it out in class. The first step is to use blue gel glue (a non toxic school glue) to create a design on a white piece of fabric. We will wait for the glue to dry then next week the kids will paint the fabric. Once the paint dries, I will soak them in water and the glue will peel off, leaving their original design white. I can’t wait to see how they turn out!


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