Sand Play Dough

It's been a long winter and we all want to go to the beach. 

It's too cold to go to the beach so I brought the beach to the art room. I offered the children colorful sand dough that I made, seashells, sea glass, drink umbrellas, plastic fish and sharks, and pinwheels. I also played some sounds of crashing waves in the background. The children had so much fun building their own personal island getaways.  

Snow Painting

This is one the most popular activities at my center.  I gathered as many bottles as I could find and filled them with tempera paints, watercolor paints, and colored saltwater.  I also grabbed some glitter, big paint brushes, and paint tray and headed outside. 

As you can see, they loved making designs in the snow.  

And loved showing their families at pick-up.

Paul Cezanne-Still Life

As part of our monthly artist study, we studied Cezanne.  I showed the children pictures of some of Cezanne's work as well as other still life work from other artists.  

The children were given this provocation. I did this with toddlers through pre-k. 

For the infants, I offered them flower sponges, bubble wrap, and tempera paint.

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.