Tissue Paper Rainbow Art

We've been doing lots of reviewing as our school year winds down. We recently had a day to review colors (English, Spanish, and ASL) and I wanted a colorful art activity available to the children. I recalled an activity we had done some time ago that involved tissue paper pieces, water, and paper, so I began pulling the supplies to get ready for the children. We used trays (that had originally been drawers to a drawer file system), added art paper, put out multiple colors of tissue paper that had been torn or cut into small square-like shapes, and had water ready in a spray bottle. This is the provocation which greeted the children upon their arrival.

We encouraged the children to spray their paper lightly to help the tissue paper stick to it. Then they began choosing their colors and layout.

They were amazed when they began seeing the colors "bleed" from the tissue paper onto the art paper. It was interesting to see the blending of the colors like the pink and blue shown below.

After they were pleased with their arrangement, we encouraged them to once again spray the paper with water. We then laid the papers on a drying rack. The photo below shows what the dry art looks like on the drying rack.

Once it is all dry, the tissue pieces readily fall off and are discarded. The below photo shows the result after the tissue paper is removed.

Below are more samples of the dry art and after the tissue paper is removed.

What a beautiful project that each one is individually unique. It's also a great fine motor activity as the children work to move the tissue squares between their index finger and thumb to lift one piece at a time. What a great and colorful activity for our Color Day.

Open House

For many programs, Open House is about recruiting and getting enrollment revved up for the next year. Since we are located on the same site as a K-8 school, we coincide our Open House with theirs and ours. While it is an opportunity for prospective families to check out the program, our main goal is for the currently enrolled children to be able to be a docent and show their families around the class, at the work they've done, and the things they enjoy doing at school.

The children were so excited to share with their families and we had been working on lots of projects and I had been planning the displays. Much of what I'm posting wasn't available for families to see when they picked their child up that day, but miraculously appeared before they returned that evening. Many of my parents hang out for a bit when dropping off/picking up their child and have the opportunity to engage in activities with their child and see projects and things they've been working on, so I like to make sure there are always some surprises in store for them when they come to Open House.

Each child and myself chose the color of their handprint to make
a very vibrant and welcoming sign for their families to see as
they arrived in the evening.

We had our digital frame out for all to see, a sign-in sheet for
attendees, and the gorgeous flowers a family donated to us for
the special event.

We had completed our Painting to Music project. See our blog
post from April 21st to read more about how this all came to be.
Each child chose two paint colors and if they wanted to paint while
listening to slow or fast music, then they got busy painting and
creating on their individual canvas.

Here's a little closer look. I took photos during the process and
then asked each child about it after their painting was dry to get
feedback and thoughts about it. We included both the photos
and the documentation in the display.

It was really interesting to see how each child chose
to paint. Some of them began with a drawing, but then
decided to cover the entire canvas, while others stuck
with their initial interpretation. It was entirely up
to them to determine what their process would become.

I posted this information to explain to families how our project
came to be.

We displayed the paints we had used and had the two musical
selections alternately playing through the entire evening so the
families could hear the music that their child chose to use.

We had just completed the GEMS: Ant Homes Under the Ground
unit so we had to share out anthill complete with tunnels, chambers,
guard ants, scout ants, housekeeper ants, nurse ants, the queen ant,
eggs, and a yummy caterpillar snack. Each child created their ant
with the appropriate body parts and decided what job their ant
would have in the anthill.

We documented the Ant study through photography
and documentation and had it out to share. I found
this cool ANT font free online. I thought it was the
perfect accompaniment for our display.

This anthill display came with the kit and changed almost daily
with overlays showing new concepts and terms as they were
introduced. On  the final days the children were able to see the
food (grasshopper and caterpillar) in the chambers, as well as the
queen laying eggs and the nurse ants caring for them and moving
them to the egg chamber.

The children were also able to share their bean/plant growth that we had posted in the windows, as well as taking the families outside to see our newly planted flower garden. We had a great evening sharing all that we had done.

Flower Petal Sun Catchers

Awhile back I saw an idea to make a sun catcher using flower petals on Pinterest. I made a few changes and modifications to what I saw and came up with a project for our class. 


A gracious parent brought in a variety of beautiful flowers. We set up a provocation with the flowers, paper plates with the centers cut out, Contact paper (sticky side up), and glue.

The children were told that we needed their arrangement to be as flat as possible and were encouraged to pull the petals apart and place them any way they liked onto the sticky Contact paper. Once they were done with their arrangement, another piece of Contact paper was placed (sticky side down) onto the original piece, sealing the flowers within. The children spread glue around the white edge of the plate and placed another cut out plate on the original one, which sealed everything inside. 

When the glue was dry we used tape to adhere the colorful sun catchers to our classroom windows. Beautiful!!

I love it when we do a project that the process is unique to each individual, their tastes and liking AND it produces a beautiful end product. This is that kind of project.

Pay It Forward...

Shortly after beginning our blog I discovered a Pay It Forward program circulating among early childhood bloggers. This is the path I discovered: New York to Tennessee to Australia to Canada back to Australia to Ireland to Maryland. Lesley Romanoff of Takoma Park Nursery School then put out the invitation to participate. I jumped at the chance. 


Since beginning the blog, I've been able to connect with other early childhood educators/bloggers from around the world. I've been sharing with my preschool class about some of the locations around the world, with which I've been able to connect and wanted to make it even more real for my kiddos. I signed up and in a short time was notified by Lesley that we had been chosen. How exciting to find out we had been chosen and we eagerly waited for our package to arrive.

I wanted to children to get a visual of where our package had
come from, so I put arrows in the general vicinity for them to see.

Lesley and her children sent a lovely photo of the school, the
class, and some general information about them and where they live.

The children enjoyed looking at a photo of the children that
sent our goodies to us.

We discussed how each state has their own flag and each friend
enjoyed waving the Maryland state flag.

We discussed that the president of the United States lives
in Washington DC, near our Takoma Park friends and
spent some time looking at a postcard of all the presidents.

We learned about the two week long Cherry Blossom Festival in
DC and read a book about it along with viewing the beautiful
cherry blossom images.

We discussed how people from all over the world visit Washington DC
and they don't all speak English. We enjoyed viewing brochures in
various languages.

We also received a map of the DC area and postcards of some of the most famous sites.

What an amazing way to make geography come to life for your students! Ready for your turn? If you would like to play AND are willing to PAY IT FORWARD from your own blog, here's what you need to do: Leave a comment on this post letting us know you'd like to play and we'll randomly choose three participants. You can be from anywhere in the world, but must have a blog.

These are the rules:

• To the three participants, you will receive a package reflecting California, US and more specifically northern California, where we reside
• You must be willing to PAY IT FORWARD to three more people/bloggers.
• If chosen, you will send me your postal address so I can send your package.
• After you receive your package, you will need to PAY IT FORWARD in the same way on your blog.
• Comments will remain open until May 19, 2012.

I'm so glad that our class chose to participate and would love to share the experience with you and your little ones!

How Does the Music Make You Feel??

Last spring I met Ms. Dana at a Montessori class we were both taking at our local college. One of our assignments was to set up the environment in the college classroom in an aesthetically pleasing way. She brought in some of her paintings, which I loved, and I asked then if she would be willing to come into our preschool classroom and paint one day. She agreed to do so. 

Dana's paintings are unique. She listens to music and paints as it inspires her to do so. I love the concept and thought it would be very interesting for the preschoolers to see the process, then try it for themselves.

We cleared out an area of the room for Dana to do her painting. She set up her easel, we got the CD player cued up for her, set out viewing chairs for interested children, and she was good to go.

The children watched intently. We encouraged them to watch quietly so Ms. Dana and they could hear the music she was playing and watch how it inspired her to paint. A few friends made predictions about what they thought she was going to paint and some stated what they "saw" in the painting. 

Ms. Dana completed her painting and we gathered for our group time. She spoke to the children. She shared that she painted based on how the music made her feel. She talked about certain colors creating particular feelings in her. She asked the children about some colors and how they made the children feel. 

Ms. Dana showed them a color wheel and discussed complementary colors and how many people use them in their artwork. She showed another painting she had done before with blue and orange and showed the colors to them on the color wheel.

After speaking to our group she told us that she was letting us keep the painting she had created in our classroom. How exciting!!

We now plan to get some canvases and acrylic paints, select some choice music, and let the children experience painting as inspired by music themselves. Thanks so much, Ms. Dana!!

Lots of "Ele-fun" and Learning, Too...

“Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.” Chinese Proverb

This is the mantra of high quality early childhood programs. Children learn best when they are part of the process through hands-on opportunities and experiences. 

This idea is the focus of GEMS (Great Explorations in Math and Science) Studies.These guides are part of Lawrence Hall of Science's curriculum (the public science education center at the University of Science at Berkeley, CA). You can go through a GEMS training and then check out the kits, but even if you don't have access to the kits, you can still purchase the guides and use them effectively. More info can be found at www.lhsgems.org.

We began with a discussion of what the children knew (or thought they knew) about elephants. During the course of the week, we were able to confirm or modify our facts. We also did some still life art by observing elephant models. One friend created her own "elephant dance". We learned how elephants use their ears and made our own headbands complete with elephant ears.

One the second day we learned about elephant tusks and their trunk. We compared how long our preschool friends were compared to actual tusk size. We learned that female elephants can have tusks up to 5 feet long and male elephants can have tusks up to 8 feet long. Wow!! 

We made elephant puppets out of paper plates
and used our arms as the elephant trunk.

We did role-play to learn several ways
they use their trunks. 

 On the third day we compared preschool friends' feet to the size of an adult, teen, and baby elephant and we estimated how many chips it would take to fill each footprint size. 

We viewed a foam-board model of a life-size newborn elephant. Many friends were shocked that a newborn could be so big.

We read the story of Seven Blind Mice
accompanied with a flannel board story where
we turned one piece at a time to see what
each blind mouse was examining.

We learned about how elephants use
mud as a sunscreen to protect their
skin. We mixed up some and applied
it on them, leaving them to dry.

 We worked on still life painting again, but this time with an easel versus the flat surface we used earlier in the week. We used paint this time instead of the pencils and crayons. We also discussed how we "made" grey paint by mixing the black and white paint together to make a tint. This friend's close observance of the details of the face was pretty amazing.

We were excited to see how the mud dried on the
elephants as their sunscreen. We then worked
together to wash them off.

We had so much fun and learned lots of stuff. We determined how many of the "facts" were accurate and which needing modifying. We found a new respect and love for these amazing creatures.