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.