Golf Ball Painting

It's Scott from Brick by Brick. I love to repurpose materials—use materials in ways different from their intended purpose.

We love to paint in my classroom. And we love to paint with all kinds of things besides brushes. Last summer, in our Art Camp, we painted with golf balls...on a canvas...and made lasting wall art.

First, tape pieces of cardboard around the canvas. The cardboard should extend a few inches above the canvas surface, to keep the balls from rolling off and away. If you have a box that is the same size as your canvas, just nestle the canvas in it. I didn't have that, so we taped pieces to create our own "box."

Pour paint into shallow containers. Roll the balls in the paint and use a spoon to transfer the coated golf balls onto the canvas. Then children can pick up the box and rotate it back and forth to move the balls around the canvas. If the canvas is large, children can stand on either end of the canvas and work together to move the balls. (Check out the process in this post.)

Adding layers and layers of paint creates a really interesting design. The paint we used was a little thick, so the golf balls created interesting texture in addition to the colored designs. We passed our masterpiece on to a special leader to hang in her office. Or you could give the painting away as a door prize or as part of a fundraiser.

Or hang the masterpiece in your classroom to showcase the talents of your artists.

Visit my Dollar Store and Dumpster Pinterest Board and my blog for more repurposing ideas.

Don't Pop the Bubble Wrap

It's Scott from Brick by Brick. I love to repurpose materials—use materials in ways different from their intended purpose.

Do you love to pop bubble wrap? It's a great stress reliever. But if you can restrain yourself from all that popping, you can use bubble wrap for painting! (And that may relieve stress, too.) I've used bubble wrap in two ways for painting. 

We have wrapped blocks with bubble wrap. Tape the wrap into place. Pour paint into a shallow pan. Dip the wrapped block in the paint. And stamp or smear away!

A hint: Fold a paper towel to put in the pan. Dampen the towel with water before adding the paint on top. The paper towel creates a "stamp pad" effect. If you do not add a little water to the towel before adding paint, the bubble wrap may stick to the towel and pull it out of the pan. (Trust me; it's true!)

Another way to use bubble wrap is to tape a piece of bubble wrap to the table or easel. Offer paint and brushes. Kids can paint right on the bubble wrap. The textured surface gives a different experience than painting on smooth paper. Make a print from the child's design by pressing a piece of paper on top of the bubble wrap and carefully pulling it off.

I always say that you can paint with just about anything. Bubble wrap is a fun way to explore and expand your painting horizons!

Rock the Box! Roll the Marble!

It's Scott from Brick by Brick. I love to repurpose materials—use materials in ways different from their intended purpose.

Sometimes I think that I only use things for something else. I tell people that I never use things for the real purpose!

A while back I mused on how to use a box I had acquired. Well, we recently used that box (or one like it) to paint.

We used marbles, spoons, and that box together to paint.

Put the paper in the box. Drop a marble in paint. Spoon out the marble and drop on the paper. Move that box around.

We discovered that the marble would quickly lose paint. So we would drop it back into the paint and go again.

We've done a similar activity with an oatmeal box. But this is different because we can see the tracks that the marble makes, as it does it.

Grab a box, any size. Just cut down the paper to fit. And rock the box and roll the marble to paint. Rock and Roll!!

Kitchen Utensils and Paint Do Mix

It's Scott from Brick by Brick. I love to repurpose materials—use materials in ways different from their intended purpose.

I use all kinds of materials for purposes other than the intended ones. This happens frequently at my art table, especially when we're painting. I always say that you can paint with just about anything.

Recently we used kitchen items to paint and explore our creativity.

First we used a salad spinner to paint.

We cut paper to fit on our salad spinners. (We cut hearts this time but circles or other shapes would work, too.) We dropped paint on the paper, put the lid on our spinner, and then spun the paper to make cool designs.

(See more about our exploration on Brick by Brick.)

We had another fun art exploration with paint and forks. Yes, ordinary plastic forks. 

We learned that you can use forks to make designs in all kinds of ways. You can swipe the fork, press the fork to make prints, drag the fork to make lines, or do all of these to create cool shapes. We even learned that placing different colors of paint on top of one another creates new colors!

(See our different designs on Brick by Brick.)

You could use other kitchen items to paint.

• Use rolling pins to create wide designs. Or drop paint on paper, fold it, and then roll over it with the rolling pin.
• Make prints with potato mashers, whisks, or cookie cutters.
• Paint the bottom of muffin pans and create dot or circle designs.
• Lay out many different kitchen items and paint. Let the kids experiment and explore.

What things from the kitchen have you used to paint? Experiment today!

Where the Wild Things Are

I am so excited to be able to share the work of one of my co-workers! Her name is Jo Ann Hamer, known to her friends and colleagues as JoJo! 

JoJo is a middle school art teacher now, but used to be our Kindergarten and First grade Art teacher until our district decided to make some moves a few years ago. JoJo had such knack for working with our Kinders and First graders, she would get them to do work that I never imagined a child that age was capable of! When I asked her to be a guest writer for our blog, she was a nervous because she has never blogged before! I told her not to worry and to just think of it as if she were sharing with me on what she did with her kinder classes. So, when she agreed to write, I was super happy to get to share her talent with each and every one of you!

JoJo has decided to share one of her FAVORITE lesson plans for Kindergarten:

Where the Wild Things Are 

 

The Focus of this lesson: reading, imagination and painting process and brush care

Materials Needed:     Book: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

18 X 24 white or neutral construction paper 80# (heavy is better for tempera paint)

Black tempera paint (day 1)

Colors of tempera paint (day two and three) I use old frosting cups to hold paint because it will not tip over it is a cylinder, plus you can leave at the easel and cover it with the lid!

Brushes/ water cups at each easel/ hand wash buckets around the room with towels

Easels (optional but truly the BEST way for Kinder age)

Day 1:

 

Procedures:

Introduce the book and Ask children if they have ever seen this book before.

Read story, talk and keep the topic light regarding the wild things…

Notice in the book: The yellow eyes of the wild things.

·         Talk about their facial features and exaggerate…

• Ask children if they have ever seen this book before?

At the Easel you:

• Paint using black paint your Wild Thing
• As you paint talk about the shapes you are using, circle, triangles a smile line, nose holes, hair…
• Tell the students they will be only painting with black paint today and then let them paint their own Wild Thing
• Show them how to clean their brush in water cup at end of class.

Day 2

• On day two have students watch you paint with bright colors, your Wild Thing
•  Let them do the same with their art.

THEN...
(Day 2 or 3) 
Share and Reflect:

• Students can share their art                
• While they are sharing ask them:
• Tell us about your Wild Thing
• Does your wild thing have a name? 
• If you were to change anything on your painting, what would it be?

 

I hope you enjoyed this lesson on Where the Wild Things Are by JoJo.  She has so many wonderful Art ideas for Kinder and I plan on having her share them with you on my personal blog Kindergarten Hugs and also through Pre-K and K Sharing throughout the upcoming months! 

I have been trying to talk her into writing her own blog to share her talent and love for Art! Maybe all the love and support she gets from Pre-K and K Sharing will help her make that leap!

Carie is a kindergarten teacher from Illinois who writes on the 17th of each month. She shares her experiences and ideas from her classroom, writing about reading, writing, math, Art, and several other fun and exciting things!

Carie also writes her own blog: 

Kindergarten Hugs

Carie Ramirez

Book and Art: The Hoppameleon by Paul Geraghty

Recently, I was browsing through the shelves at our local library when I came across this great book.

(note: the image below is an amazon link in case you want to find the book)

 

It opens in a "sleepy, slurpy swamp" as a strange creature emerges and goes in search of a friend like him. He meets many creatures along the way, each of whom points out that he must be like them because of a trait they share. He agrees with the logic and adds their name, until at the end he is a "babylizzyparroturtlehoppameleon" who finds a friend just like him.

Besides the funny story, which had the kids giggling all the way through, the illustrations are just fantastic! We returned to look at them time and time again, and finally we decided that we had to try to capture the feel of one picture in particular.  We loved the shadowed plants and creatures in front of the sunset.

To make this, we first mixed yellow, red, and some pink together in different combinations to capture the glowing colours of sunset. We started with yellow along one side and then moved across, deepening the colour as we went.

Next, we added a little white to our leftover yellow paint and added the setting sun. Then we set this aside to dry. 

While the other part was drying, we grabbed pencils and drew plants and other shapes onto another piece of paper. I encouraged the kids to draw shapes that weren't too complicated...some listened, some got more ambitious. We then flipped the paper over and painted it black with a little red at one end.

When this was dry, I helped to cut out the shapes from the black paper, and the kids glued them onto the sunset page. The finishing touch was a frog shape made with a scrapbook stamper I had in my stash, for the kids who hadn't drawn one.

Beautiful, aren't they?

Extend the activity:

-Make a taxonomy and add other names for the hoppameleon that might work. Now try it with yourselves.... you can swing from a tree like a monkey, so you could be a humanmonkey....and so on.
-play Animal Mixup on Wikispaces!
-Check out my Frogs and Amphibians Pinterest Board for more hands-on activities
-Learn 5 Green Frogs and print some puppets to go along with it at Picklebums
-print and play a frog counting game at Owens Family blog

-written by Erin from The Usual Mayhem

Disclaimer: This post has an amazon link to the book we used.

Fall Fun: Leaf Explorations!

Hi! I'm Ayn and I am a Ga. Pre-K teacher, serving 4 and 5 year olds in an inclusive setting. I share my classroom adventures on my blog, little illuminations.

Fall has begun here and it's the perfect time to explore nature. We've recently discovered the book, "We're Going On A Leaf Hunt" by Steve Metzger written similarly to the favorite "We're Going On A Bear Hunt".

We enjoy taking nature walks and collecting interesting leaves, acorns, gumballs, pine cones and other natural items along the way. We often bring items back to class to put in our science center for independent exploration, as well as in our art center. 

We measure our leaves, both with standard and non-standard measures. Of course, as a true scientist would do, we hypothesize about what we think our results will be. (This is a great time for me as a teacher to ask questions and try to prompt critical thinking.)  We use math cubes to measure length.

We cover the leaf with pennies and try to guess how many it will take to cover it completely.

We explore the properties of buoyancy. Do leaves sink or float? What if we weight it down with pennies? How many pennies will make the leaf sink?

We explore how the leaves travel through the wind to land in various locations on our playground and recreate the wind with a fan.

On the playground, leaves and natural items are an integral part of our play. 

Gumballs are everywhere this time of year, and feature prominently in our outdoor play. The children often call them "meatballs".  

Sometimes, they are featured in our art, as well. 

In our art center, we make leaf rubbings.

After I saw this idea on Pinterest, we painted the back of leaves and made leaf print paintings.

Some of the kids made nature wreaths with found items.

Sometimes, we take the art materials outside to create with what we discover there.

One of our favorite fall books is "Leaf Man" by Lois Ehlert. 

The "Leaf Man" book often inspires the children to create their own "leaf people".

Leaf explorations are often a great way to help children begin to notice the world that surrounds them.  I get as excited as the kids when I hear, "Hey, Mrs. Ayn, guess what I found?!" They are always excited to share their finds.

There are so many ways to explore the nature that surrounds us. Sometimes, a simple nature walk can lead to so much more! 

Stop by and visit me anytime at littleilluminations.blogspot.com or visit the little illuminations fanpage on facebook!