THANKSGIVING STUDIES

Last Wednesday the 4's group learned about how the Native Americans were helpful to the Pilgrims by bringing food and sharing the feast on that first Thanksgiving meal. We decided to celebrate that new friendship by creating Native American paper bag vests decorated with real symbols and designs. It was a lot of fun to create them, and even more fun wearing them!

                              Fall 2013 Projects With Paint

                                                                                                       

Our first project in September was a circle study. I like this idea because it reminds me of stained glass windows in a church. We used yogurt cups dipped in black tempura, then filled in the circles with water colors. I like the randomness of this project. When put all together, the results were stunning.

 

One day, I did a little experiment with music and painting. A friend of mine told me about a composer that used mostly synthesized or electronic instruments. The music did evoke imagery, at least to me, but I wanted to see what the children came up with when they listened to it with a paintbrush in hand. I really was not surprised at the results. Three quarters of the class painted about water!! Which happened to also be what the music made me think of. Here are a few of the pieces created by student artists.

   

Another beautiful Fall project was leaf garlands. We painted leaf shapes on coffee filters using water colors. I really love the colors the students used. I made the whole palette available for this one because, really, all colors are found in nature. And the garlands are meant to be the students' interpretation of Fall colors. In this way they are both concrete and abstract.

For Halloween we learned that yellow tempura mixed with red tempura can make ORANGE!
Mixing the colors was half the fun. Each student mixed different proportions of red and yellow to get their desired color of orange for this project. They painted one sheet of white construction paper. When it was dry, they drew a circle free-hand, then cut it out. Add some eyes, mouth, teeth, stem and grass and wa-la! Jack-O-Lanterns! They were as individual as the children themselves.

  

     

                                           

We had amazing weather for the Annual St Paul Easter Egg Hunt and Bake Sale! Always the Saturday before Easter Sunday, it's one of the best egg hunts around. The school and church grounds are divided into age groups. Here's one of my little guys getting ready before the hunt.

 

 

And here's one of my kiddos and his egg haul after the hunt! Each of these eggs have a candy inside and every child I saw had plenty of eggs. My guess is that the children will have great memories of fun times to cherish forever.   

 

 

 

We made "Wacky Baskets" for Easter centerpieces! All we used were empty margarine tubs, glue, and yarn. It really was one of the easiest crafts ever, and I think just any age group can make them.

They dried super fast, too. It only took about 6 hours total for them to be finished. They were nice and stiff, but not like a functioning basket that you could use for the egg hunt.

We filled them with Easter grass and a bunny made from puff balls. A perfect addition to the Easter table!

During Lent, the 4's group made beautiful crosses to hang in their bedrooms. The crosses were made with disassembled clothes pins glued to a piece of cardboard in the cross shape. They finished by painting their crosses with acrylic paints and attaching a hanger to the back. Some of the children put glitter paint over the top of the colored paint. They really turned out lovely. This is the kind of project they can have and keep forever.

This year we tried something new with the Leprechaun traps. I wanted to approach it with an innovation/design aspect in teams. We split the classroom into four groups, each with an adult advisor. I had a collection of materials like boxes, net produce bags, tubes, foil, pipe cleaners, etc. available. The object was to create a Leprechaun trap as a team, starting with conceptualizing it and then building it. I was very surprised to learn from the adults that each group went forward with their plan, building on each idea and not going back- all the way to completion. There was an abundance of enthusiasm! When they finished, each group explained their design to the whole class. Interestingly enough, the traps were all different from each other. We did set the traps, and even though we didn't catch a Leprechaun this year, I am positive we could have, the traps were that good.  

January 2013

 

One of January's Themes was Arctic Animals. We learned all about animals that live in the Arctic region. I incorporated a "following instructions" activity with a listening comprehension activity and I really liked the results.

 

 

                          

                                              We learned about Polar Bears,
 

                                                                            Walruses,

Beluga whales,

  Snowy Owls,

 

and the Arctic Fox.

  

 

 Plus we learned some new watercolor techniques! The results are little works of art suitable for framing.