What if Zebra Lost his Stripes?

Today our animal of focus was the zebra.
I have a book called "What if Zebras Lost their Stripes?"
I drew an outline of a zebra but really it looked like a horse because there were no stripes.
There were two different art techniques to give them back their stripes.

The first was bleach painting. I know "bleach" yikes but using it in small amounts on paper has a magical result.
We used milk jug caps to hold a little bit of bleach and the brush was a qtip. It soaks up the bleach and doesn't splash or splatter.
The children made their marks on the black paper and watched as the colour disappeared.

The second technique was similar to tape painting that we have done before.
The children cut strips of tape and laid them across the zebra (horse shape) on the white paper. Then used black water colour paint to paint all over it. When the paint dried they pulled off the tape.
They enjoyed peeling off the tape. The parents enjoyed the effect it left behind.

Pendulum Painting

I saw this art idea on Teacher Tom's website last spring and have been so wanting to try it.

I found, at Dollarama, plastic soccer nets. I just used the pipes and left off the netting.
Hung a styrofoam cup from the top pipe, with one hole poked in the bottom of the cup. The tricky part was getting the right consistency for the paint.

Zoo Cage Prints

Today we made prints again - it's a favourite activity.
With styrofoam trays we used a pencil to press lines to represent a cage.

We used roller brushes to
cover them with paint.

Then pressed stamps shaped
with animals heads onto the cage.

Owl Babies Reenactment

Almost everyday this week we've read the story Owl Babies by Martin Waddell. It's a fun repetitive story about 3 owl babies who wonder where there Mother has gone.

Today I made 3 owl hats using baseball caps, feathers and cupcake liners. Set them up in the reading corner on 3 seats (representing the branches in the tree).

At story I asked for volunteers to play the roles of the babies and then we told the story.

Our little owls did a great job repeating their lines and at the end when Mother Owl returned they flapped their wings and danced.

Feather Painting

Today at the craft table we used feathers instead of paint brushes.

We used feathers, different size tubes taped together and tubes cut in half to make different marks on owl shaped paper.
The children strokes were very light on the paper.
The parents were able to make marks that looked like feathers.

We wondered what you call a group owls? A flock?
We decided on a family.

Owl Craft

We've been focusing on owls this week and the last couple of days the craft table has been covered with materials to make owl paper bag puppets. The creations have been wonderful.









Here are a few examples;

Pumpkin Growing Experiment

Today we started what will be a year long science experiment.








We cut open one of our leftover pumpkins and planted the seeds in a container.

Then we took another pumpkin and walked to one of our families yards and planted seeds in their garden.

Now we will watch and compare which will grow and when.