The Summer is for immersion in the Elements: WATER, SUN, EARTH and AIR! So here at a Room for Art that was our guiding principle. Each week was inspired by one of the elements.We played with and made products from related materials. We found or made up games somehow related to our themes. Art projects were mixture of 2D and 3D work.
Week 1 Water
We were lucky to have this theme during this very hot week! Water is Good! Children are drawn to liquid. They play with paint, water, soap as artists and scientists learning about the properties of each. It is very useful for an artist to know these physical properties: water molecules are sticky, water flows down hill, the surface of water has tension, different paint moves differently, there are a finite number of layers of tempera you can apply to a piece of paper with out ripping it(this is tested regularly). Painting as a child is about watching paper and paint interact and being amazed by how the colours, the texture, the layers appear as the brush, sponge, fingers are moved in different ways
-water play with tubes and funnels
-big bubbles using string frames
-ice races
-atomizer games at the park
-blue mix collaborative painting
-tempera paint monoprints on plexiglass
-watercolour and crayon resist fish paintings
-papier mache fish
Week 2 Sun/Light
Light and Shadow play a major role in most art. Anything visual is dependent upon light. This week we played with looking at light: how it creates colours in a soap film, how light travels through transparent materials and does not for opaque, how objects create varied shadows outside and played with a shadow screen by making our own silhouette puppets
-light table free play
-big bubbles
-shadow drawings turned into mixed media paintings: pastel and watercolour
-sun paintings using hot colours
-papier mache suns, read excerpt of science book describing composition of our important star, the sun
-food colour mix
-3D construction with transparent materials
-shadow puppets: create characters from Native tale How Grandmother Spider Stole the Sun
-perform the play for parents
Week 3 Earth
The decomposers under rotting ash logs in the back yard were a great inspiration this week. Looking for these tiny, sometimes quick moving, creatures encouraged everybody to look closely. Drawing them was another opportunity to observe. They may be small but they are major players in the creation of soil! They also have fascinating bodies so different from people's. Most artists depend on nature for their inspiration either directly or indirectly.
Using clay as a play medium is a favourite of mine. It allows children to build on a large scale, experiment, stay loose, not expect a finished product, learn about the medium and tell stories. It is kinetic and tactile and tenacious. You can use force with it and it talks back!
-decomposer search in backyard: slugs, millipedes, centipedes, pill bugs, earthworms
-sketch what we find, read A Pill Bug's Life
-read A Log's Life about the recycling of plant material by decomposers
-free play clay- build big with potter's clay, reuse clay
-Read The Salamander Room, model sculpey salamanders
-Paint tempera backgrounds for the salamanders to 'hide in'
-ramps and balls outside (gravity play)
-sew nature journals
-built the earth's surface collaboratively with clay: water, forest, mountains
-plaster casts with clay moulds
-cave paintings like early man: made a rock coloured background with tempera, used charcoal to create a hunted animal
Week 4 Air
We barely scratched the surface of this theme. There is so much beauty in in things that use the air for movement. The wind in the sail of a ship, a bird in flight, a floating bubble, a mobile. we looked at a lot of bird images this week, tried to see the simple shapes that make up the shape of a bird. We played with air through experiments with straws, balloons and streamers. Our big project was the marionette. The construction required a lot of time and unfortunately we only started to experiment with making the marionettes move. I think there is a lot of promise in making functional art, especially the kind that supports the imaginative play of children
-bubble domes on plexiglass- homes for plastic animals
-straw painting- using air to move paint
-worked into dry straw paintings with watercolour and pastel
-bird bas reliefs with cardboard and tempera paint
-air experiments: lift and suction
-sound games
-bird cut paper collages
-papier mache marionettes with cloth bodies- characters that fly
-sew journals called Looking UP- sky sketches, face sketches for puppet
-ramps and balls- giant marble runs
-sky paintings: mix a set of colours- monochromatic blue abstract
Games at the Park: A reason to Run!
-Giant's Cave
-Hawk is Watching
-Car Wash
-Colour Search
-Turtle Egg search
-Element Game
-Bat and Moth
-Oh Deer
-Maple Seed Mix Up
-Birds and Worms
-Hot Potato
-Shadow Tag
-Hide and Seek
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