Starry Night Door Hanger

Starry Night by Van Gogh is one of our favorites from Art Studio’s Art in the Netherlands and Spain lessons from Experience Curriculum (previously Mother Goose Time). The children love this piece of art and always remember its name. We used pipe cleaners shaped into swirls to make stamped prints on our Starry Night Door Hanger crafts.

A Starry Night Door Hanger

A Starry Night Door Hanger is a Make & Play activity. First, the child makes the project and then can use it or play with it. I mixed white tempera paint and glue to dip the pipecleaner swirls into.

After making the swirl patterns, the second part involves shaking glitter on the paint and glue mixture.

I like that the child can hold the pipecleaner and feel the shape as well as see it.

The pipecleaner might make a different stamped mark than it looks like it will because it’s not completely flat.

The process requires getting a little messy, pressing the swirl into the paint and glue mixture and then pressing it onto their door hanger template.

The process takes repetition and experimentation.

It looks like art or a craft, but it also involves a sensory experience with the metallic pipecleaner, paint and glitter. I watched one little guy swirl his finger around in the glitter on the tray. It’s part of the learning!

Some kiddos weren’t too concerned about making swirl shapes and that’s fine too.

Through this process, children learn that glitter only sticks to the painted areas.

Pouring glitter is a messy proposition, but I believe it’s a worthwhile lesson. Kids just love the opportunity to use glitter! They just can’t wait. I like to put it in a shaker jar and turn the top so the opening isn’t too large. It makes the experience last a bit longer when the glitter doesn’t pour out too fast.

For our Starry Night Door Hangers, I limited the glitter station to one tray. Everyone took a turn so I could supervise and keep things under control.

Two children can work at a time – one paints and the other glitters.

I stood by with hand wipes and helped put the glitter back into the jar so it could be reused.

Glitter is worth the mess! My cordless Dyson does a great job sucking up glitter, sand, and rice so I don’t worry too much.

Along with the Starry Night Door Hangers, we so worked on some literacy activities.

What Do You See? I Can Read Books

The kids always enjoy looking at their I Can Read books. This month’s book featured Van Gogh’s work, Bedroom in Arles. The sight words for this book are “see”, “you” and “is”. The color squares can be used to look for and match colors.

Starry Words

I love, love, love this literacy activity! It is great for independent play. The child chooses a Word Tag and then finds the letters that make up that word.

I put all the Word Tags on the table and the star letters in a bowl. it worked well for two to make letters at a time. Small group activities are low key, easy to place in your centers and allow for children to come and go as they are interested.

They did a fabulous job of creating color words and were proud to “read” the words when they were done.

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
• Monet’s Haystacks

Be sure to check our Starry Night Art Inspired Sensory Play Activity.