Monet's Haystacks

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.