More Artists

We had fun using different techniques as we learned about artists this week.  We put tape on paper in the shape of a bridge and then covered the paper with do-a-dots.  When we pulled the tape away we had Monet's Japaneese Bridge overlooking his water lilies at Giverny!  We read an enchanting book about Monet's Magical Garden before we worked on our project.  

Laurence Anholt has a series of children's books about artists that I highly recommend!  We found France on the map before we read and practiced counting to 10 in French too, just like Monet would have counted!!

We also had a lot of fun playing in a tub of colored beans during activity time.

We acted out A Walk Through the Forest which is a musical adventure about a chipmunk going on a walk through the woods.  During his walk he walks over a waterfall, climbs into a cave, dances with his animal friends and a whole lot more.  All of this is done while different classical pieces are playing in the background!  

We talked about the letter B and the sound it makes.  We all tried writing it on the dry erase board in circle room, great job everyone!!

On Thursday we heard the book called Ish by Peter Reynolds.  It's another great story about children and their art.  Sometimes when we draw it doesn't look exactly like it's supposed to but it looks close to it.  A house might look housish, or a snowman may look snowmanish.  We giggled a bunch when Mrs. Gould drew  things on the white board and we decided what kind of ish they were!!  

We learned about a woman named Helen Frankenthaler who was an artist who lived in New York.  She created a kind of art called colorstaining.  She poured the thinned paint onto canvas and moved it around into various shapes and designs using things other than a paintbrush.  We had to try this out so we poured thinned out red, yellow, blue, and purple paint onto watercolor paper and used spoons, bubble wrap, tissue, cotton balls, sponges, and a roller to move the paint around and create a work of art.  The kids seemed to love this activity becasue they got to see the colors blend and create new colors, add texture to the paint, and create something that looks really cool too!  

We acted out another musical story called The Toy Shop at Midnight.  We were robots, rag dolls, tin soldiers and teddy bears as we moved to this story.  

We finally finished our White Houses.  What a project that was!  First we painted craft sticks white.  Next day we glued a large white rectangle down and added the columns (our craft sticks).  Another day Mrs. Chyko worked with the kids to add the windows and doors to the house.  Finally we added the first family and their dog and we traced on top of the words The White House. Wow, great work everybody!!  

Maple Leaf's approach to current events in preschool!! (in addition we we worked on fine motor skills during the painting, tracing, and glueing, math skills as we counted the windows and craft sticks, reading and writing as we traced the letters and read the words The White House, and vocabulary development as we talked about things like laws, presidents, and the first family).

Can your child find their project?