Color Hunt

Everyone went on a color hunt and brought back items for our JUMBO color wheel.

It was fun to see what items everyone found at home.

Step 1- Paint a large color wheel.

Step 2: Go on a color hunt at home with mom or dad. Find 6 items to give away.

 One for each color on our wheel.

Step 3: Glue your items on the color wheel.

Cooperative Art

This week we completed our first cooperative art project for the year.

Cooperative projects have us working together; either as an entire class or in a smaller groups.

Children don't have their own individual project to complete when we are working cooperatively.

I love to step back a little and watch kids work on things together. 

Strange things happen . . . they have conversations like adults sitting around a table eating.

Sometimes they encounter problems and they have to work through them and find solutions.

Team work.

Group Sharing.

Problem Solving.

Building Relationships.

So priceless and foundational for how life really works.

Last year we did several of these projects and this year I am setting a goal to do one cooperative art project a month.  This first one had them working in smaller groups . . . groups of two or three at a time.

This project also was a great project for me to assess where each child is at on cutting. We have been talking about colors this month as well so this fit great for a first project.  

PAINT CHIP ART

Cut. 

Paint chips are awesome for kids to practice cutting skills. They are just the right length for a one or two cuts.  Now you have something to do with those paint chips. Last year we did rainbows with them. Check those out here.  

(To assess cutting I had them come and do this in groups of 2 or 3. Even my police man and firefighter took a break from saving the classroom to cut for me.)

Glue and Arrange

We did this in groups of two. 

One friend glued for an entire row and the other friend choose the color and placed it. (And I refrained from telling them what colors to pick ....  I may have sometimes strategically placed certain colors closer to them so we wouldn't have an entire row of one color but for the most part they did all the arranging.) 

Our work now hangs proudly in our hall way next to our class HEART HANDS.

I think our extra paint chips will stay out this year in our Creation Station (art center). We'll see if anyone decides to create with them again.

This could be adorable hanging in a child's room or play room. 

You could even choose the colors. :))

(I don't have a source to refer you to for this project; a good friend of mine did one with her daughter and shared the idea with me and she saw it on Pinterest. Thanks Angie!)

Our First Project

Our first project. . . .
Crayon Canvas.
The idea for this project came from my friend's blog called Whatever.
It hung in our room during our Sneak Peek night with parents and on the first day of school.
It looked nice and created some curiosity.
On Day 2 I told the kids we were going to do a science experiment.
Some were curious by the table cloth that was taped on the floor.
Some said they just wanted to "watch".
They weren't sure what was going to happen.
I'll let the pictures show you what we did.
It was COLOR HAPPINESS . . .

(Gotta love an inaction shot of me talking. ha.)

 Their faces were so fun to watch. 

 The afternoon class got to watch the colors reach the bottom. We were pretending the colors were racing each other to the end. They all needed a close look.

I left some white. I liked seeing the streaks.

The am class will be so excited to see the finished product this week.

We made hypothesis' on what would happen when we turned the blow dryer on.
We shut our eyes and thought about what might happen.
Some said it would blow the crayons off.
Some said it would get mushy because that happened in their van once. (ha. Been there!)
Some said the colors would slide down and fall off.
One said it would melt like a candle.
We had many many guesses.
I love hearing their brains working.

We all agreed we were glad God was creative and created 

many colors instead of just one.

Teacher Tips for this Project

- The wax does blow and splatter a little so either do it outside or on a large covered space.
- A blow dryer with a tip that directs the heat is nice. I did both and liked that better.
- If you have 2 classes this is how we handled that. -- We just did half of it in the am and then I covered the finished part so the pm class didn't see it until we had already done most of their side.
- Beforehand we had read a book that showed real animals of all colors.  We talked about how God was creative. He created things with lots of different colors and shades - including US!
- I used 4 or 5 boxes of 24 crayons and just took out the blacks and greys.
- The original blog I got the idea from used a box of 64 colors so their were many more shades of color.