Art from the Beach

 
On the weekend my daughter and I spent some time at the beach collecting rocks, shells and driftwood.  I set them out on the art table today with plastercine, markers and I plugged in the glue gun too.
 
   
The children were busy colouring the rocks and shells.  Busy attaching the shells to rocks and rocks to driftwood using the plastercine or hot glue.
         
               
    
           
  And just exploring each item for it’s feel and taste.
               

Story – The Oyster and the Mermaid

Not long ago I was able to attend a storytelling workshop by Susan Munzer.  She creates “story in a box” kits that are fabulous.  She also sells the kits which you finish, such as the painting, at home.

Susan has authored a book called Learn to Play – Play to Learn and has a website that tells you more about the book.

I bought several of her kits and the one I’m sharing today she calls The Sea Treasure. 
 

I prefer to call it The Oyster and the Mermaid.

Sorry about the beginning of the story with the interruption but we were making cookies.  Hope you enjoyed it.

We All Play in a Yellow Submarine

With just a couple of weeks left of school we weren’t quite ready to
put our bus away.  So instead we changed it to a submarine to fit into
our ocean theme.
 
We wrapped the whole bus with white paper and started to paint.
 
I took one pool noodle and cut it in half lengthwise and secured it
under the paper. 
 
    
It holds the blue fabric that represents the water.

We hung blue and green streamers for seaweed and water. 
The children like to run around the submarine feeling the
streamers with their hands pretending to swim.

So we brought out goggles and a diving mask.
 
The submarine is decorated with fish that we made at the art table.
  
A parent brought in an asian pear wrapper and we hung it on
one of the windows.  It looks like bubbles.

Each day the children explore, expand and exchange ideas for the submarine.

Smooshing an Ocean Scene

We’ve been creating a lot of different art related to the ocean
                             this week. 
            It’s time to create a bulletin board.
     
Today we painted a group mural for the bulletin board background.

     The table was covered with one big piece of paper. 
The children were encouraged to spoon paint on to the paper.
 
We then covered the paint with plastic wrap and smooshed it together. 
The child in these pictures is quite familiar with painting with her fingers
(her mom let’s her fully enjoy the art area) but when we placed the plastic
wrap on top of the paint she was clearly unsure what to do.  She carefully
poked and pinched at the wrap exploring the new experience.

           
Others enjoyed the sensation of the smooth cool plastic on the paint. 
Picked it up, checked out the new colours mixing and then placed
it on a new spot to smoosh some more.
   
It looks like whitecaps of waves crashing on a windy day.

Painting Jelly Fish

         
The graceful jelly fish with long flowing tenacles can be
                 hard to duplicate in art.
   
              Today we discovered a way. 


We started with a sponge to create the body of the jellyfish,  then
using an eye dropper we dipped paint and allowed it to run down
the paper.
 
Using our tabletop pizza box easels made it easier to see the effects quickly.

       
The artist of this piece painted the paper with the dark blue
first and then created the jellyfish. 
The orange pops off the dark painted paper.

A few other finished pieces of art.
 
   

And I caught this child sending a photo of her artwork and a note
 to her mom using her caregiver’s phone.
  
A clever way to  encourage literacy and strengthen
the bond between child and a working parent.