Fine Motor Activities

Here's what else we did in the art room:

Fall themed cutting practice with a variety of paper 

mini tongs, marbles, and bath suction circles

chopsticks, pompoms, and an egg carton

pop beads

textured paper and sharpies

lacing beads

stickers

cutting practice with paint samples, foam paper, and straws

Light Table Activities

Here are some of the light table materials used this year:

Winter white-flat marbles, plexiglass samples, snowflakes

Valentines Day-plastic hearts, felt hearts, plexiglass samples, color paddles, stir sticks

Discovery bottles and freeze pops (not frozen)

Tissue paper squares and contact paper

Fall- felt leaves, bowls, and table scatter leaves and pumpkins

Water beads!

Colored, scented rice, scoops, funnels, table scatter apples, and boxes

Henri Matisse Paper Collage

Just as Matisse would use cut and ripped paper to make paper collage, we also ripped and cut paper and added them to contact paper to make our own collage.  

For the infants, I precut and laminated some familiar shapes from Matisse's work.  The infants were able to put them on the contact paper and take them off again. 

Wire Sculpture

For our sculpture lesson, I offered the children Styrofoam blocks, pipe cleaners, beads, pouch caps, buttons, cut straws, and felt pieces.  The children had a blast creating their own unique sculptures.

For the infants, I strung some of the same materials on pipe cleaners so they could explore the materials without fear of swallowing anything. 

Color Wheel

As part of the color wheel lesson, the children mixed tempera paints of primary colors to make secondary colors.  In addition, they were asked to find items in the art studio of each color to add to the color wheel. 

The infants also did some color mixing.  I added primary colors in between two pieces of contact paper and taped them to the light table

Pumpkin Decorating

Happy Fall! We are fully in the spirit of the season.  I offered the children fall colored paints in squeeze bottles and glitter to decorate pumpkins.  They turned out amazing!

For the infants, they finger painted on gourds.

We also made some that used less traditional fall colors.  

Cave Painting

So I got a hold of this huge box.  I lined it with wrinkled brown butcher paper to resemble cave walls.  After showing the children some photos of some cave paintings, we began creating our own with oil pastels. That's my son, Ethan, drawing in the cave. 

Clay Exploration

We explored clay this week. I offered the children chunks of clay, clay tools, and natural materials to explore.  

Printmaking

I offered the children some trays of tempera paint and various items to make prints with such as bottle caps, Legos, cups, toys, bubble wrap, and bristle blocks.  The zigzag in the paint adds some extra pizzazz to the project. 

They had so much fun trying all of the items offered and making prints.  

We also tried printmaking this way.  I taped down some interesting textured paper and bubble wrap  and the children painted directly on them. We then pressed paper onto the paint to make prints.

Welcome to my blog. I am a mother of two boys, wife of one husband, a crafter, an antique aficionado, a foodie, a movie lover, an early education art teacher, and many more things I can't think of right now.  I never imagined blogger would be added to the list of things about me.  I began this blog as a way to keep track of the projects I do as an art teacher, to inspire me to do bigger and better, and to inspire others.