Starry Night

Today’s art was fascinating to watch.
 
How children approached it differently but with some common feelings.
 
Here are two brothers working side by side.
 
The older was very controlled with his placement of stars and strokes
of the brush.
        
Whereas the younger brother was interested in the peeling of the stars and
his brush strokes were carefree and wider in motion.
        
But they both felt the same when taking off the stars – neither wanted to.
 
That was a common feeling, “don’t remove the stickers,
I’ll just paint more over top”.

But follow these next pictures. 
This girl takes you through how she made her Starry Night picture.
  
 
       
After being very absorbed in her art work, showing her pleasure at the
end she sang,          ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’.

 
            
It’s not common for little ones to cover their whole sheet of paper
but this little guy did. 
Look how interested he is as his mom pulls off of the star. 
Then examining the empty spot.  Is it because of the contrast in colour? 
Or just an empty spot needing to be covered?

    
I was thrilled to be able to capture this expression.
What do you imagine he was thinking?

 

                                    Starry Nights
                    by a child                     by a grown up

Musical Instrument Exploration

Our collection of musical instruments have been out for a week or two
for the children and families to explore.
There’s a rain stick.
Bongos and maracas.
Castanet.
Hand drum and tambourine.
A Chinese Bolang Gu.
A thumb guitar.
A thunder drum.
And a croaking frog.
 
Everyday the children venture to the table to make music.
Trying the instruments in different ways.
Or together.
Playing with the musical instruments challenges us physically,
how to handle the instrument to make it sound good.
Discovering a variety ways to use each instrument lets us hear them in different ways.
Like the thunder drum, shaking it slowly makes a quiet sound,
shaking it hard makes the sound much louder.

Sorry the sound doesn't come through that well in the video but you see
how the child explore and experiment with each piece.

Gingerbread Toast

This time of year when your usual level of energy is a little low
it's a good idea to change plans rather than getting yourself any
lower. 
Which meant, for me, deciding not to make gingerbread cookies
this week but substitute making toast that looked and smelled like
gingerbread.
         
Making toast has to be one of the easiest foods that we can teach
our children to make. 
It’s relatively safe as long as they are cautious about not touching
the top of the toaster – that’s where the teaching comes in.
   
Each time we make toast I encourage the children to make it themselves. 
I talk them through each step, if needed, and talk about safety. 
I provide utensils that are easy to use and harmless.
   
If help is needed with the spreading then I do it with them,
hand over hand, instead of taking over.
     
I encourage them to cut out their own shapes and give them
a choice of what size they would like to use.
         
Because some children do not like to eat the crust we called it the
gingerbread man’s house.  That seemed to interest them and there was
less crust in the garbage can.
 
Some decided to decorate their gingerbread toast with our snack items,
like cheerios, craisins and carrot sticks.
         
While others were quite happy to jump right in and bite a body part off.
      
For the wonderful smell we used a cinnamon spread. 
It is fairly soft so easy to spread.

Scented Painting

    
At the art table this morning I added scents to the paints.
Cinnamon was added to the brown.
Peppermint to the red paint.
And lemon was added to the yellow.

We used various cookie cutters like gingerbread men, clothing cutters
(pants, shirt, shoes, skirt, mitts, hats), and a house-shaped cutter.

As the children began to paint they wanted to add more details.
 
So using qtips and a small sponge dabber they were able to decorate
facial features and house decor.

Grown ups and children shared their paintings.
Counting how many are in the house.
Adding Christmas lights on the house.
Making a gingerbread dance.

And so much more.
 
   
 
  
The more the paint was used the stronger the scent became.
I wonder if when they’re dry, if we scratch them will they still smell?
We’ll have to try that tomorrow.