Friday, January 31, 2014

Year of the Horse

We did a simple craft this morning.
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With a precut horse head the children could draw on features, glue on
              eyes and wool for the mane plus a few extras.
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           I like how he represented the mouth with one piece of wool.
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    Clever to use longer pieces of wool to add bows to the horses mane.
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                     Her pony is called Petal, can you guess why?
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                            Very focused on printing her name.
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                       Wishing you a happy Lunar New Year.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Fortune Cookies with Buddies

              Today when we met with our big buddies we shared our
                                  Icky Sticky Bubble Gum song.
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  Then we introduced Lunar New Years with a book called Fortune Cookies.
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It’s a small book but the pictures are uncluttered and have little text.  The book tells the story of a child that receives seven fortune cookies and she opens one per day of the week.  Each day there is a fortune to read and you try to guess what might happen.

After reading the story we made felt fortune cookies.
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I had precut the circles and made short pieces of pipe cleaners.  The big buddies wrote fortunes either before we got together or there with their little buddies. 
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Then using a glue gun they first glued the pipe cleaner in the centre of the felt circle, place the fortune on it, then folded the circle in half adding one more dot of glue to seal it.
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                 The pipe cleaner lets you bend and shape the cookie.
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                    Finally we enjoyed a real fortune cookie.

 

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Bee Day 2014

Every year in January our school hosts a Spelling Bee.  Leading up to the Bee classes make art work to decorate the hallway.  These are our bees.
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One of our families donated a big bag of rug hooking yarn.  I dug out the yellow and black and placed it at the art table with yellow paper, glue, scissors, googly
                  eyes and wings cut out of laminating material.

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Each child approached their art in a different way.  Some started by drawing an
               oval, others placed the eyes, others just glued on the yarn.
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                                Each bee was unique and lovely.

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  One child and his dad decided to make a 3D bee and make him fly
                      (the bee is attached to a string).
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They spent probably a half an hour creating this bee.  The child loves using the
          glue gun and the parents are allowing him to be creative with it.
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            Our hallway display drew attention from the older students. 
                      I saw them pointing to their favourite bee.
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                             Till next Bee Day, keep having fun.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Record Player Art

I’m embarrassed to say that it’s been three years since we used the record player at the art table.  I’m not sure why because it attracts  the children that are the least likely to chose the art table to explore.  That was reinforced again today.
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It’s mostly boys that I’m talking about.  Boys that are always on the move
           and don’t like to sit and do but prefer to be up and go.

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            There were little brothers wanting to not to be left out.
Reaching in to be sure he got his turn even though he could barely see over
                                       the record player.

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  We added a stool to make it easier to reach and to see what was happening.

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              They enjoyed every step; squeezing, watching it drip and
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           then using different tools to move the paint and see it blend.

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Occasionally you can still find a record player at the thrift stores but you could ask your families if anyone has one packed away that might like to donate.  We’ll leave it out again tomorrow and see who ventures over.

Monday, January 27, 2014

Snowy Owls

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Our craft today was to make snowy animals using pinecones and cottonballs. 
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After stuffing the pinecone full of cotton they then glued pom poms on and
                                  added googly eyes.
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               Some children used wool and looped it to make wings.
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                        They definitely are individual in their looks.