When the children from last year made their alien head gear, we gave them an instruction card of what they could attach to the base and how many of each they could use – a bit like a recipe.

We thought we would have some more maths fun with these children but with a slightly different focus.

We made a set of four ‘recipe cards’ and they chose which one they wanted to follow.

We provided the children with baskets so they could collect their bits and pieces …

and set out PVA glue and heavy cardboard for their pastings.

They could make any picture they liked and could add or pull it altogether with drawings.

Some children chose to replicate the recipe layout on the card …

while others followed the recipe to create their own ideas.

Then there were those who chose a ‘recipe card’ but did their own thing.

and some just … did their own thing!

As always though, their designs were unique and creative!

This one was a bit of a standout as this child invented his own recipe card!

Once the enjoyment of our pinball/marble maze had ‘run-it’s-course’ we decided rather than throw the boxes away we would reuse them to create a couple of group project with our two pre-kinder groups.

We supplied the children with a selection of very colourful and textured bits and pieces along with brightly coloured paints mixed in with P.V.A. glue. We have found in the past that children this age struggle a little to remember to paint and glue, so find it easier to combine the two.

Group projects are a very new experience for our pre-kinder children as at three years old they are still rather ego-centric and like to keep everything they make to take home straight away … but they were all for working together on this project to keep at kinder!

We witnessed great turn taking and sharing of equipment here. So impressive for three year olds! We also heard some really lovely language as these two discussed with each each other which piece they were going to paste next and where … so cute!

Oh and they LOVED the sticky, gooey experience of the painty glue. Then again … they are three year olds, right!!

We have now proudly labelled them and they are displayed on the wall for every one to admire!

We so LOVE group art projects!

This post is part of the  ”We Play – Childhood 101“

Pop on over and see what others are playing at this week!

Someone donated some fabulous thick plastic sheets to us …

and as we had some bits and pieces left over from our nature sculptures,

we thought the children might enjoy making collages. We were able to add some sand as well as the art works were flat.

For this activitiy we felt that PVA glue would be strong enough.

Although much simpler than the sculptures the children made earlier in the week,

they were still very effective …

We accidently discovered that due to the shiny surface of the plastic, the glue and sand mixture peels off beautifully in one piece and can easily and successfully be cut with scissors!

Hmmmmm … we see potential here!

Just before we went off on our term break, we headed over to Reverse Art Truck to stock up on some supplies.

Amongst the goodies we brought back to kinder were small wooden blocks …

and a big pile of interestingly shaped plastic bits.

We put them out with some PVA glue and let the children go.

What a lot of varied junk sculptures they created. Very simple but all very effective!

While we were at Reverse Art, we picked up a bag of small triangular bits of vinyl and card left over from picture framing.

We put them out on a table with thin black textas, no instructions.

Again, the children blew us away with their creativity.

We had a big piece of card (a border from a large photo frame), with rectangles cut out, which were coincidently the same size as the children’s art work …

so mounted the finished products and put them on view for everyone to admire.

Totally irresistible!

You have probably noticed that we like ooey gooey stuff at our kinder.

We wanted to move on from the goop and decided “gack” was the way to go.

Again we headed to Science Bob. He calls his slime, but we call soap flakes with water slime, so called ours gack.

Once again we wrote up a simple recipe for the children to follow.

1 scoop of PVA glue

mixed with 1 scoop of water.

Then add food colouring

and mix in 1 scoop of liquid starch …

then MIX, MIX, MIX!

It becomes beautifully blobby and improves with handling.

Make sure you use good quality liquid starch (fabulon’ ironing aide is good) as when Sherry tried to economise on a home brand product, the experiment was a flop!!

But when we got it right …

oh …

what …

fun …

we …

had!

Easel painting is an activity we offer to our children every day.

A great way to extend the activity is to include a selection of items which the children can can use to decorate their pictures to enhance the overall experience.

We added PVA glue to the paint pots and provide things like feathers, patty pans, cotton balls, cards and scissors.

By supplying recycled cards, in this case we provided Easter cards, something wonderful and unexpected happened. One child wanted to know what the writing on the card said which created a lot of interest amongst the other children.

Donna needed to hover by the easel all morning in able to help the children ‘read’ what the cards said. This resulted in the children assembling letters within their pictures … so great for literacy!

By providing scissors with the activity the children were encouraged to cut up the words and pictures.

While some children’s scissors skills are excellent, many still struggle to handle them correctly, so this proved to be a great opportunity for them.

Some children simply used the paint as a way of gluing things to the paper …

while others painted and pasted with the paint …

and a few even took the black texta and drew their picture before  painting …

It proved to be a great way to attract to the easle those children who so often pass it by … and we’re sure you’ll agree that is always to be encouraged!

Another very popular activity with varied and individual results!

We decided a number of years ago that it would be nice to have the children create group projects we could display for everybody to enjoy.

Once, after we had read the delightful story of elmer by David McKee the children began creating beautiful patchwork pictures by cutting up squares of brightly coloured paper and pasting them to pictures they had drawn themselves.  This gave us the idea of having the children create a group mosaic picture for display, so we introduce them to the basics of mosaic art.

We have lots of bits and pieces in tubs we have collected over the years so the children set out to gather up objects to use for our project. Sorting through everything was great for their fine motor skills as they found items like corks, bottle tops, tiles and glass stones as well as some very tiny beads, buttons and sequins.

We had two pieces of ‘mdf’ given to us by one of our crafty mums which was perfect for the project. We used PVA glue to stick the decorations onto the timber as it is strong and dries colourless.  Some children preferred to use a small brush or cotton bud for the glue while others enjoyed the sensation of using their fingers, and what fun they had in peeling the dried glue off their hands and fingers afterwards.

We explained to the children the idea was to position the objects close to each other, covering as much of the board as they could and boy they did a fantastic job!

Every body got involved and the result was absolutely beautiful. The children really enjoyed being part of a team and took great pride in what they had achieved together as a group. The mosaics are now on permanent display in our room.

Following the success of our mosaic project we invited to children to create a series of mosaic pavers.

You can see how we used the pavers in our ‘make it irresistible – with a hush garden‘ post on January 11th.