Message System

In my quest to help eradicate the world of worksheets, I have been exploring ways to embed meaningful literacy experiences into our daily lives at home. I created a message system on our fridge that I hoped would inspire the kids to write message to one another using pictures and words - that way the system was accessible to our pre-emergent three year old writer, and could also support the more advanced abilities of our six year old.

I posted a picture and name for each family member on the fridge...

...and modelled how notes could be written and delivered to one another using sticky post-it notes.

I thought by posing questions I could engage in a motivating dialogue with my daughter, who would be able to independently read what I wrote to her and answer me back.

It's proven to be a very successful literacy experience so far and could easily be adapted for use in any early years classroom!

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!

Exploring the Backyard in Winter

We have had some beautiful sunny weather around here lately - the perfect kind of weather for getting outside for some fresh air and playtime! We decided to check out the garden to see what the plants looked like in the middle of winter.

It was interesting to see that some of our plants are still green, even though we just had some recent snow fall. What really caught our eye however was how some of our flowers had dried on their stems and looked preserved from the fall. The white hydrangea was interesting...

...and so were the seeds from the tall, striped grass.

After carefully cutting some, we pressed them in between two sheets of clear contact paper and brought them inside for viewing on our light table.


  
The light below allowed us to see the parts of the plants in great detail - highlighting veins in the flowers and the intricateness of the seeds.

We thought it would be fun to gather more of the dried flowers and create art. We used brown, white, and gold acrylic paint.

Caleb carefully dipped the flowers in the paint and stamped them on his paper.

The thickness of the acrylic paint helped it to keep the print left by the dried flowers on the paper...

...and resulted in a gorgeous marble inspired piece of art! We liked how the colours we chose represented the colours we noticed in our garden this time of year!

Still Life Tulips

I love to have spring bulbs in the house to brighten up the winter months! I thought that this particular pot of tulips would be lovely to inspire some still life drawing and painting.

 

 Because we have our drawing/writing materials sorted by colour, it was easy for Cadence to choose what she thought would be a best match for representing on her paper what she was seeing in real life.

A great strategy she used was to hold up the drawing tool to the tulips in order to select the best colour match possible.

She experimented with drawing the tulips using crayons, coloured pencils, and markers.

When it was time to paint, we discussed how to get the perfect shade of pink to represent the flowers. We started out by adding a tiny bit of red to our pot of white paint.

 We mixed....

...and added more red....

...and saw if it was a match...

...and added more red....

...and mixed and mixed and mixed....

...and checked...

...until finally we created the perfect shade of pink.

It was interesting to compare the still life pictures that Cadence felt were her best and discuss how her representations evolved with each experience, and how the selection of tools/materials helped to create as rich a representation as possible!

Marble Effect Hearts

We created some very pretty marble effect hearts to string across our front entrance! They are so easy to do!

To start, smear a layer of shaving cream on a flat tray.

Drop a good amount of food colouring all over the shaving cream. We decided we wanted a rainbow effect so we dropped the colours in the order of the spectrum.

Use a fine tool like a toothpick to swirl the colours into one another - the more you swirl the more of a marble effect you will create!

Once you have the effect you like, gently press a piece of paper and smooth it over the coloured shaving cream.



This is the paper after it has been lifted from the tray - it is beautiful in itself!

 

Use a hard, straight edge to smooth the excess shaving cream off the paper. We used a hard piece of cardboard. 

The effect of the stained paper is simply beautiful!

 We created a number of marble papers and cut them into hearts, which we strung across our front entrance! Beautiful!

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!

Magic Potions

What better day than a cold and blustery one to engage children in some water play indoors! I step up this 'magic potion' station for Caleb to explore.

I set up our portable water table and placed a long wooden board on top to act as a shelf which would enhance the play by adding a level to explore further. We used the three primary colours (food colouring in water), pipettes, and many clear plastic cups of various styles and sizes.

I encouraged Caleb to experiment with the colours and create his own 'potions' by mixing the primary colours together.

Manipulating the pipettes was also excellent fine motor practice, something that will help him with his future pencil grasp.

He created some amazing shades, which were placed on the wood shelf to be admired. It was interesting to discuss the various shades of colours with him.