Sewing Dots

Developing fine motor skills is important for young children. Activities that strengthen the small muscles of the body can help children become proficient at drawing, writing, grasping and manipulating small objects, and fastening clothing. We engage children in many interesting and complex tasks in our classroom to help develop small muscle strength, fine motor control, and dexterity. 

This afternoon we encouraged the children to again explore the recycled material 'dots' and consider how they might use a plastic needle and yarn to string or sew their own creation. This was a VERY popular centre as many children were eager to experience sewing!

It was interesting to see the children persist and use different strategies to problem solve how to string the foam objects that did not have any pre-cut holes - many realized that with enough force the needle could be pushed through the material.

Be sure to check out the following link to see what other fine motor activities we've done in the past. Many of these are easy to implement and would be great for families that are eager for activities to try at home together.  http://mrsmclennan.blogspot.ca/search/label/fine%20motor

Beautiful Stuff!

Today was the day! The children were so excited to empty our "Beautiful Stuff" bags onto the carpet during circle time and see what amazing materials came to school!

We couldn't believe the diverse art, science, and recycled objects that the children brought in.

 

During playtime we invited interested children to remain on the carpet and help us decide how to sort and organize the hundreds of objects.

The children remain interested in time lapse photography as a result of the YouTube videos we have been watching during our inquiries. We have been exploring an app called 'Lapse It" and thought it would be fun to record our own time lapse sorting adventure. This video uses over 900 still shots taken over 40 minutes!

 

 After we sorted the objects the children helped us name each group to establish the sorting rule used - some objects were sorted by materials while others were sorted by use. What an interesting collection! The objects have now been added to various centres around our classroom and the children are already planning how to explore and create with them!

A BIG thank you to our wonderful families for your support and encouragement of our children and program!

Recycled Caps on the Light Table

I love finding beauty in recycled materials. We have been experimenting with using more found and natural materials around here. For the last few weeks I have been saving any kind of cap or lid instead of tossing it in the recycle bin. Here is our collection - the diversity of colours, sizes, and textures is interesting and these qualities were evident when I placed the clear bin of lids on our light table.

It's interesting to see how the light from below really illuminates the lids and makes them appear to glow.

It was fun to use these 'loose parts' to explore and create some art.

A truck driving on a sunny day...

A boat floating in the water...

A rainbow...

A silly face...

(According to my daughter) me holding a water bottle...

I'm going to keep these lids for some future art activities. What might your children create with their found and recycled objects?

Recycled Styrofoam Stamps

I love discovering the unconventional beauty in found objects - I am constantly looking into our recycle bin and thinking about how we can use everyday materials in creative ways. The kids have been very interested in stamps lately and so I thought we could recycle some styrofoam trays we had from produce into our own handmade stamps (why do cucumbers need to be packed on styrofoam trays anyway?!?!).

This activity was so easy! We used a metal skewer to carve an image into a square of styrofoam. My daughter visualized what she wanted her design to look like, but it would be easy to have children preplan their stamp by sketching it on a piece of paper first.

Next she affixed the stamp to a large foam block (with some tape) so that it had a base that could easily be grasped.

She gently stamped her paper after wetting the stamp with an ink pad and....voila! Her own unique, recycled stamp!

My daughter spent much time creating many new designs and testing them out on her papers. Next I'm going to encourage her to use her new stamps to design stationary that can be used to write letters to her friends and family!

Recycled Tube Heart Stamping

I love to recycle things into art materials and use as many 'found' things as possible in our explorations. I have noticed on a few of my favourite blogs that it's easy to turn a regular cardboard tube into a heart stamper by creasing it at the top.

We made six stampers and used a muffin tray as our paint 'palette'. It kept the paint organized and was perfect for keeping close to our working paper.

At first Caleb was very meticulous in how he stamped the hearts. He wanted each one to be perfectly formed and took his time analyzing the paper and planning his next move.

After a while he became lost in the activity and really explored how the stamps could be placed over top of one another; the heart forms still visible but the colours blending together...

In the end he created a beautiful masterpiece! I'm always amazed at the beauty behind children's artistic expressions - especially when we resist the urge as adults to control the experience. Had I reminded Caleb to carefully stamp each heart on the paper in its own space, as he was doing at the beginning of the activity, he wouldn't have ended up with such a beautiful piece of art!

Recycled Puzzles

We love using found and natural materials in our learning experiences at home and school. Here is a wonderful way to recycle an old food box that I learned from my friends at the Parenting and Family Literacy Centres.

First cut the face off a food box. I like to use products my children are very familiar with.

Cut it into random puzzle-type pieces.

Encourage your child to fit the pieces back together just like he or she would with a commercially bought puzzle.

Celebrate and do it again!

This activity can be repeated with any product packaging and is a great way to infuse a little math into your daily activities! So easy!

Recycled Tube Stamping

We had lots of paper tubes sent in from over the holidays and decided to recycle them into painting tools today. The children used them to make circular prints!

Recycled Artwork

We have had some very interesting items donated to our art program this year! We are very interested in exploring how 'found objects' can be used in the classroom. Some children decided to create artwork using some of the found materials.  This is what they created:

We always welcome donations of any kind...especially interesting objects!

Creating with Cardboard

Mrs. Bombardier invited the children to explore an assortment of recycled cardboard at the art table. It was so interesting to see how they worked with the material and what they created.

Many children created parking garages and car ports for use at our building center.

There was lots of great math talk as the children explored how to make the structures stable and how to ensure that the supports were of equal lengths so the structures were level.

Working with the thick cardboard proved to be a challenging fine motor task for the children too! Great for strengthening hand strength!

It was wonderful to see the children helping each other out and co-creating structures together!

At the end of play time we encouraged the children who created at the art table to share their recycled structures with the rest of the class. What a great way to encourage creativity, cooperation, and recycling! Why don't you try this at home with your children over the holidays?