Passport to Preschool Week 7

"F" is for things that FLOW! We incorporated our gravity lesson with P2P this week for a group project. Between globs of paint covered objects rolling downhill to water changing colors we had a very busy morning.






Afterward we made some Flowers and because it was such a windy day (yet very warm!) we ventured outside to feel the wind blowing and watch the leaves falling from the trees.





Then it was back to work on our color...RED! Using colored pencils the students drew on their color page. Once one child got hold of a sharpener it became a sharpening frenzy. We let them go to town since it's such a great fine motor skill. They actually did this for a good 10 minutes! Ask your child if they can now sharpen a pencil, I bet they're great at it.

Gravity Revisited!

This lesson was a hit last session so we decided to revisit it with all it's mess! Paint, balls coated with paint, toy cars, anything that rolls and of course the watercolor balloons hung from the ceiling. It was a blast as usual but the most rewarding part was that the children with sensory issues got the messiest and had the most fun! We ironed out many sensory bumps this week.

For the older children we mounted their finished pieces on foam core board. They were pretty proud of their work, as they should be.

Paper Making

We are always thinking of projects the children can work on with recycled material. Paper is so dynamic and continues to inspire new ideas. With some glue, water, scraps and a blender we went to work on paper making.

This technique required a lot of skill from these children but as you can see they mastered the steps in little time.

At first when they saw the tub with gray water and particles floating inside they wanted nothing to do with it. We showed them some finished pieces and the frames they would use to scoop up the pulped paper. This captured their interest. We are now up to our ears in paper!!!










We also introduced bead making with paper. Again this required the polished use of fine motor skills. As these students continue to attend our classes we witness the mastery of their skills and the look of achievement on their faces is priceless.!
That's what we are all about.

Monsters...

We all know about the monsters in our closets and what better way to expose them than to create them! We had a lot of fun this week making monsters. I guess we have that Halloween bug!

Passport to Preschool Week 5 and 6

Owl Babies was our book this week and we explored shapes and colors along with printing and textures. I love reading this book to the children and watching their faces as they anxiously await for the Owl Mommy to come back.

With this lesson we also introduced cutting to the younger children. Children LOVE TO CUT! So we let them cut as much as they like with our supervision of course. This is a wonderful skill that enables them to manipulate their hand muscles. Great preparation for writing and hand eye coordination.

The children made the baby owls in the book and worked on there color and alphabet pages.











Week 6

E is for EARTH and that's where we live. We had the students make their own earth out of paper mache. The first day they placed the strips over the balloon and then once it was dry they painted land and water.



Just for fun and the practice of creating lines we read the Very Busy Spider. After the story we went on to make a spider web. Step by step they made their webs with glue, then they poured glitter over the lines and added a spider for the finishing touch. They were very busy...but not so tired afterward. When their parents came to pick them up they couldn't wait to show them their webs!






We had so much fun with the glitter and glue webs that we decided to make another type of web with yarn and paste. A very messy project and one that required a steady hand. After these dryed we removed them from the wax paper and they were stiff webs the children were able to hang.

Watch it go!

This lesson explored movement with materials and marks, water and tubes. From watercolor with glue, paint and salt to floating boats, Lauren once again combined fun with learning and it was a blast watching the children go to work.

If you're wondering about the tubes we had the children make balls out of model magic then throw them in the tubes that they lined up all around the studio.

Let's Make Some Art!

Monday nights the older kids get busy! Tonight we used multiple foam core and mounted them together. Then we placed various kinds of paper all over it to create a very cool 3D piece. A. and E. were very pleased with their work as was I. P.S. thanks to their Mom for the delicious Honey Crisp apples, I had one right after class, yum!

Passport to Preschool Week Three and Four

We started our third week of P2P with two books, A Tree is Nice and The Giving Tree (one of my favorites). The children were able to sculpt their own tree with the boy in the book. We let them experiment with model magic. This is a great product because they can manipulate it, draw on it and glue things to it. As you can see from the pictures they were really engaged in sculpting these subjects. The story really came to life this morning!

Next was the letter B and the color blue. Children made their own blue pieces of art and then of course there were bubbles..


















Week Four started with the letter C and the CRAZY elephant named Elmer. We also talked about rectangles and the color yellow! It was a busy week but these students were on top of it.

"it is fall"

So it is Fall isn't it!? This evening we had a great deal of fun painting trees, making leaves out of crayon shavings and wax paper, using oil pastels to draw details on leaves and much more. Our Magical Creations L2 class did a great job assembling their mobiles with the leaves they created. Nice tribute to the season...

Passport To Preschool - Week One and Two

This week we welcomed students to our new program: Passport to Preschool (P2P). All the children were busy making their own personal boxes, cube pictures, painting their forms, painting with watercolor ice cubes at the light table, and making moon sand.

We read some books that introduced us to our lesson and helped us all get to know each other better. Here are just some pictures from the first day. See you all next week!











Week Two:
We started with the letter A and began by reading The Alphabet Tree by Leo Lionni. A great book that teaching the idea of letters that make up words and words that make sentences. In addition our shape of the day was a triangle and color of the day was green. The children were so busy today time flew by! From making "A"lligators to making Green dough, we had a blast. Can't wait until next week!