Category / Art projects and activities

by arTree

Cards for Moms

Making gifts for moms has become a ‘thing’ in my classroom now.

We make gifts for them almost every day. Kids want to make pictures for their moms. They want to pick flowers for them. They want to wrap pieces of papers as presents for them (the more of them there are and the more colorful they are the better, obviously).

I scored a box of old (yet amazing) greeting cards at a garage sale and when the boys found them in our tinkering space, they were amazed. They immediately wanted to use them to make cards for their moms. True, some of them were wedding congratulations, Christmas cards, Valentine’s Day cards… but when the kids combined them together, glued some gems on top and wrote a personal message inside, I think nobody minded.

by arTree

Building a House

Yesterday the kids decided that my house burned down and I need a new one. What followed was amazing.

They started talking about what my house needs and of course, since they are four boys, the main focus was bathrooms. As of now, my new house has 18 of them (one of them being inside of a dump truck to make it easier). But that’s not all. I now have ‘pool noodle electricity’ installed throughout my mansion, along with a hose so that my house does not burn again… I have three beds, an attached restaurant and a lot of things to play with, including a fish and a monster. I have a high-tech security system that will scare all bad guys away and I have a very flexible roof that can be removed as needed. Honestly – what more can I wish for?

From a professional point of view – they worked on it for two hours, cooperated, helped each other, planned and estimated how what will support the weight of the logs… they measured and counted how many items they used. They wrote messages around the house practicing their literacy skills. They were so engaged, it was truly inspiring.

by arTree

Happy Pi Day

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Have you ever wondered what’s inside a computer keyboard?

Well, my little engineers don’t need to wonder anymore – they know! 🙂

We celebrated Pi Day yesterday by opening two old computer keyboards and popping all of the little keys outside. It kept 5 kids busy for over an hour so I think it was a big hit! They took turns with the grown-up tools and  patiently unscrewed every last screw that was holding the parts together.

Now we have a box filled with computer scraps – I’m thinking robots… let’s see what the kids come up with! They often take me on a totally different journey. For example, I would never think of using the keyboard parts to create a shaker 😉

 

by arTree

Pet Rocks Rock

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We have been talking about animals this month, especially pets. And since not all of the kids have pets at home, we decided to make our own. We chose the rocks (everybody got two) we wanted to use and gave them a proper bath. The kids loved splashing and scrubbing the rocks clean. Then they dried them in a towel and let them rest for a bit.

Rest didn’t last long though since everybody was so excited to start painting. We used regular tempera paint – and covered the whole rock with colors. Then we added feathers, beads, eyes, flowers, buttons and yarn to make our animals unique.

As they were drying, we filled out their adoption certificates, signed them and told stories about them. Some of the rocks were friendly bugs, others were parts of a vicious snake… it was really fun seeing the different animals and hearing the creative stories behind them.

by arTree

Pink glasses for everyone!

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What color glasses would you wear if you had a choice?

We explored light, colors and color mixing with these awesome glasses. Kids had a blast and tried one, two and even six of them at the same time.

‘It is orange!’ cried one.

‘I made it really dark! It’s so dark I don’t even see anything’ laughed the other one.

‘I have two colored eyes! One yellow and one blue!’

Then they tried mixing the colors on the overhead projector and even on the light table… sharing the goggles with each other and talking about the way the colors made them feel. It was really fun and it made me think they are SO ready for art lessons about secondary colors. YAY!

by arTree

Happy Valentine’s Day


Today we were sitting at our table, eating snack, reading books and talking about Valentine’s day. What it is and what it means for us.

I asked the kids how we celebrate it. They looked at me for a while and then said: ‘by loving everyone!’ I love that answer! (Even though I totally did not expect that) – isn’t it so much better than saying by giving each other candy and cards?

Gotta love preschoolers.

by arTree

Mailing letters filled with paint


Painting letters

V really enjoyed putting together huge letters today. It started slowly. He wanted to paint over some doodles he made on a paper. Then he wanted to paint another piece of paper… and then he experimented. What would happen if I put them on top of each other? This simple inquiry resulted in thirty minutes of a very focused work. He kept adding more and more paper and using the paint as a glue. When the paint was not enough he used tape. Soon the letters were so thick it was a challenge stuffing them in the envelopes. 

I was amazed how such a simple activity can become such an amazing project – with such focus and attention. Soon M started copying V’s work… it looks like I have at least two engineers and inventors in the classroom this year. We already talked about getting more boxes so we can build up our houses with them (and tape) and painting them. Looks like a long term project in the making of you ask me. ❤️