Irresistible Ideas for play based learning

Donna popped into our favourite recycle centre, Reverse Art Truck during the holidays and came back to kinder with lots of goodies.

Amongst it all were some plastic bottles with pump action squirters.

She filled them up with coloured water and put them at the outside easel.

We thought the children would press them down with their index fingers like we would, but as doing it that way was a bit difficult for them … actually it was tiring work …

they came up with clever ideas to get around the problem … like the two finger approach …

the middle finger for strength …

the thumb for power…

and the whole hand action for speed!

Lining up that tiny hole so it pointed towards the paper was an added challenge. (We must admit a couple of children did squirt themselves in the face … but being only coloured water no harm was done … phew!)

The resulting paintings were fabulous …

each one unique …

and the children just kept queuing up to have a go.

Not only was it a great exercise in patience, turn taking and using both fine and gross motor skills …

it again became a wonderful colour mixing exercise!!

We picked up this great idea the other day from ‘Teacher Tom‘.

Posted on his blog on March 12th titled ‘Boy Art‘, we figured any idea that attract boys to try creative activities is definitely worth giving a go!

Teacher Tom’s blog spot is – http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com

We’ve always enjoyed offering the children marbles to paint with.

It’s a fun creative exercise where the children dip marbles into paint …

drop them into trays lined with paper and roll them around.

It provides a wonderful opportunity for pattern making …

and any one who’s been following our blog for any length of time will know we believe you can never have too many opportunities for colour mixing!

Thanks to Tom we were able to add a new dimension to this popular activity.

Using our removable tray-table-top we headed outside into our wonderful Melbourne, autumn weather …

and using ping pong balls dipped in paint, instead of marbles, we set the children free to create!  (We believe any activity we offer the children inside should work just as successfully in the great outdoors.)

Tom invited his children to move the balls around by blowing through straws but the children found this to be very hard work, the balls kept getting bogged in the thick paint.

So, just like Tom’s students, our Red Group children used the straws to hit the balls around on the paper.

They said it was like playing mini golf!

The children played and created here all morning …

resulting in the paper being replaced several times!

When the Blue Group children arrived we thought we’d mix it up a bit by changing the colours of the paint …

but like the other children, they too found the balls hard to move through the thick paint …

so they elected to roll them around…

using their hands!

They really got into the sensory experience …

with relish!

ooooh soooooo goooooood!!!

Both groups had a ball creating their art …

and we’re sure you’ll agree the different results were spectacular!

Oh and the boys ?

They had SO MUCH FUN!!!

Thank’s ‘Teacher Tom’ for the irresistible idea!

Be sure to visit Teacher Tom via his link on the left hand side of the page.

… and tell him Sherry and Donna sent you!

 

Many children at this early stage of the year still love to paint their hands and swirl them all over the easel paper. Such a wonderful sensory experience!

An added bonus of this is that they create wonderful mixes of colour and enjoy telling us what they have made.

As some children don’t enjoy getting paint all over their hands we thought that they could have a colour mixing experience which wasn’t so messy.

We mixed together primary coloured paints with glue and put them into bowls with little spoons.

The children popped little dobs of the gluey paint onto waxed paper, placed another sheet on top …

then spread the colours around with their hands.

The result was varied and interesting.

When they had dried out, the children cut around their shapes …

and we put them on the window …

so the light would shine through like stained glass.

One child said that they looked like stegosaurus spines.