Foam on Mac Tac

The foam pieces on Mac Tac continues to be a very popular centre.

 

This child spent a long time creating a self-portrait today. She worked carefully to bend and twist the foam into shapes that she felt helped to represent what she looked like.

 

We noticed that a symmetrical design emerged in her work, which led to an interesting discussion on what symmetry is and how we can use it to help us create interesting pictures and designs.

 

Letters are formed on the Mac Tac by bending the foam in different ways. This takes patience and perseverance as the foam doesn't easily stay shaped in tight bends on the Mac Tac. Little fingers have to diligently work to 'write' with the foam.

A beautiful masterpiece!

Sticky Mac Tac and Foam

We covered the easel with sticky clear Mac Tac and provided mini foam noodles for the children to use for creating. The Mac Tac is a lot of fun because the children can easily stick and restick the foam into shapes and letters. 

This activity also strengthens fine motor skills as children persist with manipulating the materials. 

Sticky Sculptures

We hung clear, sticky mack tack on our easel and offered the children mini 'pool noodles' to create with. 

This activity offered children a chance to create non-permanent art 'sculptures' by sticking the noodles onto the easel in different ways. This activity required patience and practice as it was not easy to manipulate the materials. 

Our children have exploring straight and curvy lines as part of our exploration of how letters are formed. There was some interesting discussion about the shapes and directions the children's creations were taking. 

We observed some great teamwork and cooperation today!

Outdoor Finger Painting

Today we found another use for our acrylic outdoor easel! I love to encourage the children to finger paint but sometimes it can get so messy. Instead of using a flat paper surface, we dribbled finger paint on our outdoor acrylic easel.

The paint was thick enough to stay on the acrylic, giving Caleb an interesting surface to paint on. Usually finger painting is done on a horizontal surface, and he seemed to appreciate the challenge of experiencing it done vertically instead!

The sunlight shone through the paint and illuminated it, much like when one finger paints on a light table. It reminded us of beautiful stained glass.

Clean up was easy! We just sprayed it with the hose. Don't have an outdoor acrylic easel? What about trying this on windows? (maybe perform a spot check first...just in case!)