Preschool

This week we explored texture and Monet’s Haystacks. It’s not my favorite series of Monet paintings, but we had fun with it in preschool from creating textured haystacks art, textured letters and looking for farm animals hiding in the hay. Mother Goose Time’s Art Studio has been exciting this summer. See the end of this post for more Art Studio activities.

Monet’s Haystacks

This project may not “look like much” when it’s complete, but I appreciated the process of the Haystacks Invitation to Create.

First, we looked at the Inspiration Photo. We talked about this being another picture by Monet. Does anyone know we’re looking at? We don’t see haystacks like this anymore. Farmers around here bale the hay. What is hay anyway?

Then we talked about how we could make a haystack picture. Mother Goose Time provided brown crinkle paper so everyone checked that out.

I said, if I were making a haystack project, I would draw a haystack shape on my brown paper like this, and drew a shape with a curved top and flat bottom.

Then we can cut out the haystacks, glue them on the paper and add the crinkle paper on top.

Consider the planning that took place, then the drawing with a pencil, cutting, gluing and adding the texture.

I don’t want to guide the art necessarily, I just know my group. It was likely my group would lose interest and move on too quickly before creating anything if I didn’t present it the way I did.

So that’s the direction most took. One 5-year-old drew a picture and told a story about the haystacks, which I thought was creative!

Haystacks textured artwork:

Textured Letters

There was lots of interest in the Textured Letters Small Group Literacy activity. First, we chose an alphabet card.

Then the child assembled the letter shown on the alphabet card with colored letter parts.

Then using a crayon, they rubbed it over the letter to transfer it to paper.

Some needed help holding down the paper. I was surprised the letter parts didn’t move as much as I expected.

They did a great job creating textured letters!

What a great hands-on way to explore letters!

Hiding in Hay

Mother Goose Time takes a simple Farm Animal Matching Game to another level by adding a sensory element.

We put hay, which our rabbit eats, into a plastic bin. Then we hide one set of the matching cards in the tub.

The other set of animal cards is arranged face-up on the table.

The kids loved taking turns looking for card matches in the hay!

The hay has texture, smells, well, like hay! Plus it was something different, that really drew their attention.

I explained that this is what hay is, that’s shown in Monet’s Haystacks painting.

Some of these animals also eat hay. Which ones?

Kids always love activities that are a little messy but this one wasn’t too bad.

It would have been great for outdoors but it’s been pretty hot here this week.

What other ways could we play this game? One of the 5-year-olds tried to match the cards with his eyes closed. Another version was don’t get the rooster! If you draw the rooster, it’s someone else’s turn.

That wraps up Monet’s Haystacks activities!

More Art Studio

• Self-Portrait Center
• Monet’s Flowers
• Hosting a Preschool Art Show
• Preschool Art Study: Painting Sunflowers
• Starry Night Sensory Play
• Girl with a Pearl Earring
• Magic Letters Watercolor Painting Literacy Activity
• Cardboard Murals
• Community Collage

Two of my favorite things about Mother Goose Time are the Forest Friends books and the Community Challenges in each lesson. Our community collage wasn’t actually a lesson plan suggestion but it was inspired by the Forest Friends book called A Community Collage A Story About Creativity.

Community Collage

A Community Collage is a story about creativity. Fox, one of our favorite characters, is upset because he can’t draw a tree. He crumples up many pieces of paper before giving up.

Racoon comes along with a piece of cardboard and explains that art comes in many forms. He suggested using the paper to make a collage.

The book details the steps for making a simple collage. I love that the characters use the materials they have on hand, which includes nature items.

In the end, they actually created a tree! Beautiful!

Making a Community Collage

We started with a piece of cardboard too. It was leftover from our Cardboard Murals. I gathered some materials from the art cabinet and cart for us to get started with. We also used the colored letter part pieces from the Haystack lesson.

Everyone took turns gluing materials on the collage.

Later in the day, my older group who no longer naps went outdoors and gathered some nature items to add to our collage. We agreed that leaves, flowers, and sticks add so much to art!

One of the kids decided to go look for some more feathers and found a few.

Look at our beautiful community collage! As soon as it fully dries, we’re going to put it on display in our room.

All ages can participate in making a collage. Some of the little ones squeezed on a lot of glue and the older ones helped fill in the spaces.

I love that Mother Goose Time offers ideas for working on community projects. It promotes teamwork and consideration of others. And there’s such a feeling of pride when it’s complete!

More Art Studio

• Self-Portrait Center
• Monet’s Flowers
• Hosting a Preschool Art Show
• Preschool Art Study: Painting Sunflowers
• Starry Night Sensory Play
• Girl with a Pearl Earring
• Magic Letters Watercolor Painting Literacy Activity
• Cardboard Murals

We’re continuing to explore Art in France in week two of Mother Goose Time’s Art Studio. First, we made water lily pond art inspired by Claude Monet. Now we’re looking at Monet’s Flowers.

Claude Monet used specific color palettes and brush strokes to depict light and shapes.

Monet & Flowers

To paint Monet’s Flowers, we used “pokey balls” and the following tempera paint colors: red, white, blue, green, and yellow. I just put a small amount of each color on paper plates.

The Monet & Flowers lesson plans include learning about the colors of the French flag, say Hello and Goodbye, drawing flowers and the Monet’s Flowers Invitation to Create.

Monet’s Flowers Invitation to Create

My oldest one mixed red and white together to make pink. Awesome!

Sometimes it helps to show the children how to use the tools although it seems obvious. Dip it in the paint and make textured “flowers” on the paper. Try another color!

Mixing the colors was probably the most inviting part of this activity for my group.

I’ll be honest, I did get frustrated by this. Not that I care so much about how their art turns out. I’ve gotten over that a long time ago. With young children, art is about exploring the materials and the process, not what the art looks like.

I warned everyone that mixing colors is fun, but if you mix them too much … you get gray.

But then it became finger painting…

and painting of the hands and arms. Ugh. I just don’t like worrying about their clothes, scrubbing all the paint off, etc. We don’t always put paint smocks but usually, I put them on the younger ones. I wash kids clothes if they are going to be stained and tempera doesn’t always wash out. So I wasn’t so relaxed about this one, but they seemed to enjoy it!

A seven-year-old painted the painting shown below.

The rest of my group is ages 2 years – 5 years. They all look wonderful (after the mess is cleaned up!)

Somedays I feel like we have a more successful day with activities. Other days, they just want to hurry through it and move on. That’s the way it is with young children. And it’s summer so let’s get back outdoors!

More Art Studio

• Self-Portrait Center
• Hosting a Preschool Art Show
• Preschool Art Study: Painting Sunflowers
• Starry Night Sensory Play
• Girl with a Pearl Earring
• Magic Letters Watercolor Painting Literacy Activity
• Cardboard Murals

The topic of Lesson 4 of Mother Goose Time’s Art Studio is Fresco & Mural. A fresco is a painting done on a wet plaster wall. Fresco is the Italian word for “fresh” because artists painted on freshly plastered walls. A mural is a large painting on any type of wall or ceiling, indoors or outdoors. We decided to create cardboard murals outdoors with large sections of cardboard pulled from the recycling bin.

Frescos and Murals

Over the holiday, we were out of town during a major and came home three days later to a wet basement. So we removed any wet cardboard boxes. They weren’t too wet so they dried quickly. I decided to make use of our extra cardboard and cut it apart for our murals. Using a staple gun, I fit it all together like a puzzle and stapled it to our fence.

Our murals on cardboard don’t exactly look like Cathedral Art, but it’s our version. As a family child care provider, I’m all for making the most of inexpensive or recycled items.

Using paper plates to hold the paint makes for easy cleanup. It might not work if it’s breezy outside but it wasn’t the day we painted.

No rules, no directions, just paint! Here is a lovely painting of a flower with fireworks around it.

Experimenting with colors and design.

The beautiful beginning of a rainbow.

Beautiful flower painting. The next Monet??

I wanted to paint too! It’s an irresistible invitation to create!

The foam “paintbrush” pictured below was provided by Mother Goose Time. It’s such a smart tool. The paintbrush is simply a rectangle piece of craft foam that’s rolled and held together with a rubber band. It’s a perfect size for little hands and creates a fun texture.

I just love how the mural looks! I wish it would last longer and we could keep it up long term but not with the rain that came our way.

Clean up was easy – just take down the cardboard and in the recycle bin it goes! The paint plates go in the trash and wash up the paintbrushes and tools. Then turn on the sprinkler and wash up the kids!

It was another fab art experience with Mother Goose Time! See more Art Studio ideas below.

MORE ART STUDIO

• Self-Portrait Center
• Hosting a Preschool Art Show
• Preschool Art Study: Painting Sunflowers
• Starry Night Sensory Play
• Girl with a Pearl Earring
• Magic Letters Watercolor Painting Literacy Activity