Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine Art

This past week was spent in art heaven! 

The children used a variety of materials to create decorative hearts and valentine art for their families. 

Check out their process, the materials they used and the skills they practiced:

Base Material: Outline of a heart

Tools: Paper strips that they cut into pieces; Scissors

Art Material: Glue & Crayons

Process: The children began by outlining the heart with a crayon and then colored the inside of the heart. We then moved to the cutting and gluing of the "pieces." The children practiced cutting long strips of paper into small pieces. The repeated motion of short cuts is a different type of cutting practice and one that typically develops before sustained cutting (longer lines to cut). The tracing, writing and arrangement of paper pieces was each child's choice as they practiced hand-eye coordination to get the pieces inside the heart. 

Base Material: Foam and cardboard hearts

Tools: Stickers - flat and thick foam; leftover snipped paper

Art Material: Sticker backings & Glue

Process: This art experience was totally open-ended, allowing all of the creativity to flow. The children were tasked to peel the stickers and apply them onto the heart(hand-eye coordination and visual-spatial awareness). They also decided to add the extra snips of paper to give more layers to their art pieces. They picked up one material at a time using their pincer grasp for some extra fine motor practice. 

Base Material: Wooden Heart Ornaments

Tools: Q-Tips 

Art Material: Paint

Process: "Dab Dab Dab" was the repeated language as the children applied the paint to the hearts. This repeated motion created a unique art piece that the children noticed right away. They moved their hands at different speeds on different areas of the heart, which was great fine motor and hand-eye coordination practice.