Invitation to Create Apple Trees

This year, our art with Experience Curriculum looks a little different. The art activities are still as wonderful in the past, perhaps even more so now because they are very open-ended and developmentally appropriate for young children. Come see how it looks and works with our invitation to create apple trees. This art is a part of the Me & My Family theme.

At circle time, we already discussed our families. How many people are in your family? A family is like a tree. there are many connected people that all share the same family roots.

Invitation to Create Apple Trees

Each Invitation to Create includes one of these beautiful cards to inspire your activity set up. It lists the materials needed, the ones provided in the kit, your materials to gather and optional materials.  It tells you how to set up the materials and prompts you can use with the children. Invitations to Create are very inviting! Use your imagination and find related materials you already have to add to the invitation.

Family Tree

The day we worked on our “Family Tree” art, I had 5 preschoolers participating. I set up a small area for two to work at a time. I set up another area for work with the family stamps to keep the groups small and manageable. It worked very well. The next day when we worked on our owl art, I set it up for everyone to do at once. I’ll share that next. So Invitations to Create are flexible. See what works for you. I’ve had to rethink art a bit but that’s a good thing!

Materials provided:

• paint
• brushes
• glue
• green leaf shapes (you could provide green paper so they can create their own leaves)
• crayons
• apple tree photo

Not pictured: Souffle cups, blue paper, brown paper strips

Prompts you could start with:

• What do you notice about the tree? What do you think will happen to the apples in the tree?
• How will use you the souffle cups in your art?
• What might happen if you tear up the brown paper?

Everyone was quick to get started. They have used these types of materials many times so they jumped right in. I offered very little comment or direction. Everyone’s work was different. I could see choices being made and materials being used intentionally. I could see the thought going into their work.

They had the opportunity to cut, glue, paint and use a variety of materials.

Some asked for more leaf shapes. Everyone could use as much of the materials as they wanted.

I was able to just watch the choices being made and the engagement in their work.

Beautiful art resulted! Each one unique but inspired by the same photo and materials. This group is aged 2 years – 4 years. All very capable!

Here’s their beautiful work on display in our room:

Read more about Self-Exploring Through Unguided Art