Mouse Paint

I love this book. Have you read it? You should.

It is a great example of color mixing and very easy for children to really understand and come away with a better understanding of color mixing.

 

The idea of this story is that 3 white mice are hiding from a cat on white paper. They find 3 jars filled with the primary colors and they jump in. They each make a puddle of paint and a differnt mouse jumps in a new primary color...does a little jig..and makes a new color!

 

 

So. Our first step in the project is to of course read the book! After we read I refereed to the Mouse Paint poster I happened to pick up at a garage sale to reinforce how we make secondary colors.

 

This project is a two class project.

 

Day One: Mix the primary colors and paint 3 pieces of rectangle paper in the secondary colors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 





That was the end of painting for day one! Then they worked on their art journals, which will be another post.

Now to my part...cutting out the mice.

 

 

 

 

Very time consuming...but so worth the final result!!

 

Wait til you see it :)

 

Thanks for reading.

 

 

 



The First Day of Art!!

Today was the very first day of art class!!

My new bulletin board!!

 

Set up for art today

I wanted to paint the word CREATE today, but didn't have time. Sad.

 

 



This class is by far not the most fun of all art classes, but alas it must be done.

We went over the rules. "No running around the room." "Stay at the tables." "Paint is messy so paint brushes do not belong over the floor or waving in the air." "We are in art to do art, not to play with toys I forgot." Ya know..the norm. :)

We went over how to use the dry rack. SUCH an important thing to go over that I have forgotten to do the past two years. Things go so much smoother when the children know how to use the dry rack. Art projects don't get ruined and it doesn't pull teachers away from children still doing the project.

We talked a little about Primary and Secondary colors, not our main focus for today but something I really want them to get so we will talk about them a LOT!

The main focus today was setting up our art journals.

This is a good time for them to learn how to use their journals, how to turn only *one* page at time, pretty much my whole system for art journals :)

So here is what we did today:

 

 

I really like the purple glue for preschoolers. Then they can see exactly where the glue is and we can point out when they are going overboard.

Gluing in a Picasso quote.

 

 

The first page :)

 

Just the start of this page. They will be finishing it next week.

 

Just the start...more to come :)

 

Happy Thursday All!

Art Journals: Family Tree

Anyways. The art journal we are currently working on is a tree with hearts in the leaves and "Family" written on the opposite page. Here is my inspiration I found on Pinterest.

Here is my set-up for the journal area:

 

 

The journals have the child's picture on the cover. I wanted to make journal time an activity that teachers didn't need to help with, which includes finding their art journal. It works really well. Also, there is a cloths pin marking what page they should be creating on.

Step one: Draw a tree.

I showed the kiddos my tree. I didn't tell them that we were going to put hearts all over it. Mistake on my part....or was it?

I look ever during art and some of them are getting really elaborate on their trees. Some have flowers at the bottom, some have mangos, some are drawing birds.

They were being creative.

 

 


Step Two/Day Two: Cut hearts out of paint samples.

The actual art lesson while the tree journal was going on was about Tone. So I figured why not use paint samples in our books that show tone perfectly.

Lesson learned about drawing hearts: make them big enough so small hands can cut. When even my fine motor skills aren't refined enough to cut out the hearts...maaaaaybe I should make them bigger.

Step Three: If we do this...we will add the word Family to their book. I haven't decided yet.

Here is their work:

 

1.  Mangos!

 

 

 

 

 

Maaaangos!

 

Art Journals: How I Love Thee

Did I spell "thee" right?

Anyways, Art Journals. Amazing little things.

My coworker Frannie gave me the idea when she saw it on Pinterest. In fact, she pinned it to her board titled, "Pins for Pam." (Yes...I'm that cool that I get a board just for me!)

In the past year during art, if a student would finish early they would go read a book.

Reminder: I work with 3 and 4 year olds. "Read a book" translates to "Get a book and run around the stage" or "Get a book and play on the stairs."

Needless to say...reading a book doesn't work.

The whole idea behind the journal is to give them a project they can do all on their own in this journal. It embraces their creativeness, allowing them to continue to create art while in art class. Not work on their jumping/climbing skills.

I was pretty ambitious when I started these books. I wanted there to be a quote on each page, so when they look back on them when they can actually read they think "aww...Ms Pam was really cool."

So the first few pages in their books look like this:

 

 

Ya....I can't figure out how to rotate them in the blog. Oiy.

So while it was really cool to have quotes and explanations, I just didn't have the time to keep up with it. Next year I hope to be able to prep it way ahead of time so they are already cut out and I just have to grab a bag and go.

I asked that "composition notebooks" be put on our supply lists....and in parenthesis they put (for art). BAD idea. A few children brought in art notebooks, ya know, the kid that tear out without you even trying at the top? Ugh. I wasn't very happy when I saw that. The whole point is to have a notebook that your child can explore their inner artist in, and in a few years look back and say "Wow! I was 4 when I did that?!"

Lesson learned.

Wow....this is going to be too long. Part II coming....

Art Explosion

Well..I proved myself right today.

Art is messy.

I had 3 different projects going on at once. 2 involving paint, one involving a LOT of glue and cutting.

Ohhhhh paper scraps. Everywhere...just everywhere.

and the paint? Soooo much paint.

It was a pretty relaxed day in Ms Pam's Art Room. The projects we did work on weren't too stressful for the teachers. When my classes are taking place, every adult in the room is actively engaged. I need as many hands as possible...I am not an octopus.

 It was nice to see the kiddos able to do so much of it on their own. I love it when I can tell them the project for the day and set them lose!

Here is what my room looked like after today:

This wasn't even the messiest paint project. You should have seen the Pattern project. Oiy.

 

Do you like my table covers? The one shown here is actually a painters tarp. They got it for me after the last time I spilled liquid water color all over the carpet. (Ya...that doesn't come out.) So it should really be on the floor, but there wasn't much threat to the floor today.)

 

I loooove them for so many reasons.

 

Reason 1...The most obvious is it makes clean up a whole lot easier.

 

Reason 2....its fun to see how messy the kids can get it. ;) (and when I say "fun"...I mean grab a paper towel quick and clean up gobs of paint so it doesn't ruin the next child's art work...)

 

Art Journal Station I plan to blog about today's art journals as well. I hope it turns out like I have pictured it...get those dimes ready. ;)

 

 

My "desk" for the day. Apparently circle tables can't handle my 3 project art class days..

 

Art Journals drying. Today's journals included "dots" of glue. Have you seen some 4 year olds "dot" glue? There is a reason I have them open and drying...

 

Mr Andrew being super helpful.

 

My beautiful dry rack!!! The kids did such a great job today!

 

So...3 blogs on their way!

 

Stay tuned...but now I should probably finish cleaning...

Tomorrow is the Big Day!

Tomorrow is my first art class where I will be taking pictures to post on this wonderful blog!!

It is a lesson on Tone/Value.

Don't know what that is? Well come back later and find out!!

I plan to take pictures of the process and write about how to do the project and what you have to adapt for the younger kiddos.

If you know me, there will also be a touch of sarcasm. Just a touch.

Hope to see you tomorrow!!

Art Is Messy

Hello All!

I have been blogging for some time now, a personal blog, but my coworker has inspired me to document my art class!

I teach art at a preschool in Madison, WI to 3 and 4 years old. Not only do we creat art but discuss the different elements of art.

You may be thinking, "art" and "3 and 4 year olds" in the same sentence? YES!

It is amazing what children can do.

Don't get me wrong, it is extremely challenging and exhausting, especially if you're pregnant, but the outcome it completely worth it.

To hear a teacher tell me that their kids were discussing warm and cool colors during their free choice makes me want to sing. Or to hear them throwing around art "jargon" (like "texture" or "representational" -jooooooking-). Or to see them take their art project in a whole different direction that I thought possible. Well to put it lightly...it's amazing.  

 They DO listen! They DO take something from class. They really are taking their time, being creative.

Two of my main theories while teaching:

1. Art is messy.

If they are going to get paint or any other medium on them I tell them before we start class, and they now know to respond, "That's ok! It's art!"

2. Art is not perfect.

I obviously go into each class with a vision in mind of what I would LIKE to project to turn out to be. Does that always work?

Well let's just say if I had a dime for every time a project turned out just like I envisioned...I'd be broke.

It is the projects that look *nothing* like my vision that are the most eye catching.

To me though, it really is about the process. I don't want to do the project for them, I want them to do as much as possible for themselves. (With that being said though, there are some things I plan that I do have to adapt for them.) I want them to show their own style and ability, have them really be proud to know that they did it all themselves!

 Projects are much more interesting when the child has taken control of it. With that being said, it has been a huge process for me, Ms. Perfect When It Comes to Art, to let them do things like that.

"Oh you want the grass to be purple? Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure..."tug on my hair" that will look great!!"

So why am I doing this blog?

Well, I love blogs. I love Pinterest. Both have been a huge inspiration for several of my projects. However, not once have I seen a blog where the art teacher is teaching to preschoolers. So now..I am that blog.

Enjoy my journey. It may be an exhausting and messy one, but it's really rewarding.

So pull up your computer and put on your art smock.

We are going to get messy.