Squirt & Blow

         
        For today’s art we pulled out the blow dryers again.
          
Using eye droppers in water colour the children squirted
           paint on to watercolour paper.
 
        
Then using the blow dryers they made the paint dance across the paper.
   
           
I think they enjoyed the dripping more than the blowing.
I’m also glad I only have three blow dryers.  Anymore and
                 it would be very very noisy.
   

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Bubble Discoveries

             
The weather has turned to rain, again, and I planned an
outdoor art activity to do in the rain but just before we
were to go out, the rain stopped.
 
   So we quickly changed it to "bubble blowing and catching".
      
       We didn’t go far, just outside the front of the school.
 
We placed the clipboard with paper on to the ground as a target then
started blowing bubbles.  That was our first discovery; which way is the
wind blowing?  We needed to move to the other side of the clipboard.
 

   
       Then we blew and blew and blew.
 
    And tried to catch the bubbles as they floated around us.
 
          We started to collect bubbles to make art.
     
      Our second discovery;  bubbles will disappear from the paper.
        
    Our third discovery; bubbles will last longer stuck to the wall then
                     they did on the paper.
     
     The children began to build bubble sculptures on the wall.
       
They learned that the sculptures could be changed by popping some bubbles
       
                         and adding more.
     
        And look what we could see inside the bubble – us!
              We saw our reflection and a rainbow. 
      Such a simple idea was not only fun but educational.

Melted Crayon Art

        
For the past year or so I’ve seen wonderful melted crayon art work
on the internet.  Crayons melted by using a blow dryer.  Wow how
fun would that be to try?

 
Yesterday I set up a canvas to do as a group to see to see if there would be
interest and how the children would react to the noise of the blow dryers.
        
There was great interest from both children and grown ups. 
There were some children that didn’t like the noise but if we
kept it on low they were okay.  Some even gave it a try to the
surprise of their parents.

Today I set up the art table for each child to create their own
melted art.
      
As I set up an instruction sheet the first child joined me and
started gluing his crayons on to a piece of cardboard.
 
After gluing the colours of his choice to his cardboard he started the
blow dryer.  And blew and blew and blew.
        
It takes quite awhile for the crayons to begin to melt.  I was
impatient so decided to put them in the oven to get them started.
 
Two minutes was a bit too long but we quickly went back to the art table and
used the blow dryer to move the crayon around to make a design.

 
I was excited to see that many families busy at the art table.  A bonus
was the science aspect of the art.  The crayon changing from solid to
liquid when heated, soft when it was still warm and hard again when
cooled off.

  
These children did have the patience to use only the blow dryer to make their
crayons melt.  Well done and beautiful.
       
I would recommend trying this art activity.  If you come up with
ways to modify it to make the crayons melt easier and quicker
please let me know.

Cloud Hunt

Last Friday we had a beautiful sunny day to head out
                 on a cloud hunt.
  
Our Nature Bags were packed with a cloud viewer
  found at E is for Explore, clipboard, blue paper,
          cotton balls and a glue stick.
       
Before heading out we enjoyed Eric Carle’s
         book “Little Cloud”.


We walked across the school yard and set up some mats
    so we could sit back and study the clouds.
 
I listened as the grown ups talked with their children about the
names of the clouds and how you could tell if the weather was
going to be good or if it was going to rain.
      
Then they dug out their cotton balls, paper and glue
 
and started to build their own clouds; rockets, cats, big and fluffy.

 
Then I shared one more book called “A Sky Full of Clouds”.  The children
took a smaller copy home.
 
 
           Clouds come and go, change shape and help us imagine.