Watercolor Letter Art

(4 Years)

Is it too hot or too wet to go outside?  Are you looking for a calming project?  This one would be perfect!  Watercolor Letter Art

Materials needed:
Watercolor paper
Watercolor paint
Thin paintbrushes
Marker
Pen

The project itself was very simple to set up.  I drew a large block letter in marker on watercolor paper, and then inside the block letter drew squares and rectangles in pen.  My plan was for them to carefully paint inside the lines (something we have never worked on) and to remember to choose a different neighboring color when painting.  I wasn't sure how this project was going to go.  Were they going to want to work on it?  Will they like it?

I showed them the model that I made.  We discussed how I must have had to carefully paint to stay within the lines.  We talked about how the same color isn't repeated in an adjacent box.  I asked if they wanted to create their own, and to my surprise they did!

Little Miss methodically chose the colors according to their placement in the watercolor tray to make sure that she didn't choose the same color twice (brilliant!).  Wild One chose randomly (that's how I did it too).

When I saw the smiles, I knew they would finish the project in one sitting.  

Look at them practicing for writing!  They are trying to control where the paint goes, just like when printing (you need that fine motor control).

Calming, quiet work.  Concentrating on staying within the lines and not using the same color in an adjacent spot.  Practicing for writing.  Enjoying color mixing and painting.  Creating beautiful art.

 Happy Monday!

Preschool Paper Mache

(4 Years)

Paper mache!  It screams childhood.  Ripping paper.  Mixing flour and water.  Putting your hands in a goopy solution.  Painting the dried creation.  Fun!  Making a paper mache project is a great way to work on so many skills at once, in a playful way of course: ripping in strips (it's harder than it looks for a four-year old),  following directions, hand-eye coordination, measuring, pouring, mixing, transferring, using a paint brush (great practice for writing with a pencil), color mixing, and of course developing those fine motor skills.

They liked the fact that they got to rip paper.  We haven't ripped paper (other than wrapping paper) in a long time.

Look at that smile!  That's right my little one, rip the paper, develop your pincer grip to prepare you for writing.

Measuring the flour and pouring in the water.  We used a 1:1 ratio.  We also added in a teaspoon of salt, it's supposed to make the mixture resistant to mold- at least that's what I was told in school.

Wild One getting wild mixing his solution together.  

I think he thinks that he is one of the kid chefs on Master Chef Jr.  

"It's fun to mix fast.  Do you want to try it?"

"No.  I like mixing slow."

Twins?  Really?

I wrapped a small glass bowl in plastic cling wrap.  Turned it over and modeled how to dip in the strip of paper, squeeze it out between two fingers and then place and smooth the strip down on the bowl, and they were off! 

Look at that concentration!  Wild One is squeezing it out perfectly.  

Little Miss found a short strip of paper to begin with, she loves tiny things.

Goopy!

Ta da!  On the left is the one Little Miss created, on the right is Wild One's. There was about three coats of strips on their bowls.  Let them air dry for two days.

Carefully, pull the cling wrap until the paper mache bowl starts to release.  If the inside of the bowl feels damp, continue to let dry.  Ours was ready after the two days.  I grabbed 

our Dollar Tree muffin tin, some paint, paint brushes and called the kiddos over.

Little Miss was stunned that the paper hardened into a bowl.  She loves painting.  If you don't want to see any of the newsprint, I'd recommend spray painting the bowl a base color first.  

 At first Wild One didn't want to paint.  He changed his mind a few minutes later.

She is painting the rim of her bowl a contrasting color.

Wild One is excited because he created gray.  

He's holding his paint brush like a magic wand.

We let our painted bowls dry and then I sprayed them with a clear coat of spray paint.  Now we have beautiful handmade catch-alls to hold some of most-used art supplies.  They are remarkably sturdy.  I thought we would have to be careful with these, but they dry into a pretty rigid bowl.

When they saw how beautiful they turned out, they asked to do this again.  Yay!  

I just love zero-added cost projects, don't you?

Popcorn Magic with Lesson Ideas

(4 Years)

Me- Do you want to see magic?
Little Miss- I do, I do!
Me- What do you think these are?  (I poured out a handful of popcorn kernels)

Little Miss - Beans, tiny rocks, seeds. (I had her feel a kernel and describe it).  It's tiny, hard and yellow.
She poured 1/2 cup of kernels into a brown lunch bag.

Her brother finally emerged from his room and asked to help.  Then she folded the lunch bag over twice.

 

 
We put it in the microwave.  I pressed the secret POPCORN button.  They said, "hocus pocus!"  I asked what they thought was going to happen.  Little Miss - It's going to get hot.

Then they heard the all too familiar pop pop sound.  Wild One - Popcorn!  Mommy it's popcorn!  Are we making popcorn?  They watched as the bag started inflating and they began to pop up and down like little kernels.

We usually buy Orville Redenbacher's Natural Simply Salted Microwaveable Popcorn.  Yummm!  I've wanted to try popping it in the brown lunch bag for months.  I kept thinking, it can't be as easy as pouring kernels into a brown lunch bag and pop the bag into the microwave.  If it was that easy someone would have told me by now!  Well, it's just that easy.  I like a little butter and salt on my popcorn.  So we melted a tablespoon of butter and mixed in a little salt, then poured that over the popcorn and shook the bag.  So yummy!  How did I not know about this?

LESSON IDEAS
So... the teacher in me feels compelled to tell you that you can easily turn this into a math lesson- compare the volume of the kernels to the popped corn, or compare the weight.  If the kids are ready, you can also discuss the reaction (science) that took place.  A writing lesson can be to describe what happened with illustrations.  You can create a popcorn necklace or even paint with the popcorn (art).  There are even fun popcorn books that you can use for read alouds - Tomie DePaola's The Popcorn Book, Half Popped and Popcorn to name just a few that you can borrow or buy.  Today, we decided to observe and describe a kernel and compare that to the popped corn, ok and have a healthy snack.

Learning with food is so much more fun, isn't it?