November 3-6; 10-13

Collecting Leaves and Acorns

Fall has finally arrived on campus and the children have been noticing all of changes around them. Two major changes are the leaves changing color and falling and acorns falling from the trees. We decided to take a nature walk to discuss all of the changes and collect leaves and acorns for some classroom work. As we walked and ran through the campus there was a flurry of discussion about all the leaves and acorns on the ground. As the children collected, they compared their findings and counted their pieces of nature. They noticed the differences in size, texture and color of the leaves as well as the acorns with and without tops and their different colors. At the end of our walk we brought our bins back to the classroom for counting, sorting and Process Art experiences.

Process Art

Process Art prioritizes the experience of creation over the final product. It is the type of art most experienced in our classroom since we believe the children should be creative and open when they explore and create with art materials. In these experiences we provide open-ended materials for children to explore freely and create an art piece with specific art materials. This format fosters creativity and self-expression as well as problem-solving as the children experiment with and discover how to manipulate the materials. Children use many of their sense to experiment with materials and learn about cause-and-effect relationships.

Paint Stick Art

Our first art experience involved a new art material - paint sticks! The children could "paint" the leaves and then use them as stampers on the paper, or use the sticks to color the page as a backdrop for their leaves. The paint sticks require a bit more pressure to use than crayons or markers, so they also provide hidden motor skill practice. The level of "pressure" children use in writing/drawing utensils is important to recognize and gives us a view into their fine motor skill abilities. We look for their ability to adjust the amount of pressure and the ability to use enough pressure when completing fine and gross motor tasks. The goal is to automatically modify the level of pressure and force from the muscles and use smooth, graded control of movements.

Fall Collages

Next we added LOTS of glue to large construction paper and created collages with the leaves and acorns. The children arranged the materials in a variety of ways on the page and some discovered that if they crumple the leaves in their hands and "sprinkle" them onto the paper they created a different art piece. Lots of fine motor work was practiced as the children picked up the acorns and leaves, arranged them on the paper and moved the materials to create their own unique collage.

Acorn Painting

And finally, it was time to use up all of the acorns! After counting them in morning meeting we got out paint and trays and used them to create our own unique paintings. We used primary colors and watched as they combined to create secondary colors. The children added 3 acrorns to start and could place them anywhere in the tray. As they moved and shook the trays they watched the acorns move and paint! Problem solving was quickly incorporated as they discovered that some of the acorns move fast, some move slow and some got stuck! They noticed that the acorns made "tracks" and "lines" as they moved around in the tray, and that red and yellow make orange!