My Montessori Journey

Easter Egg Suncatchers

Similar in set-up to our Valentine Suncatchers, we are making egg-shaped suncatchers in the classroom this week.  In the photo below from left are:  a blue tray with egg shapes traced on contact paper with a black Sharpie marker; a basket with same-sized blank pieces of contact paper and a pair of scissors; tape; a divided bowl with tissue paper squares in various colors (NOTE:  I bought these pre-cut from Discount School Supply........SO EASY...........CLICK HERE); a basket to hold the "trash"; and a vinyl placemat.

 

To do this work, the child first peels the backing off one of the plain pieces of contact paper.  They place the backing paper in the "trash" basket.  Then they use tape to attach the contact paper sticky-side-up to the vinyl mat.  Next, the child attaches pieces of tissue paper to the contact paper.  When finished, they place a piece of contact paper with the egg on it on top.  The final step is to cut out the egg on the traced line.  Before this project is finished, the "trash" basket is emptied into a garbage can.

(Also, I bought the contact paper used for this project from Discount School Supply.  I like their contact paper because it is not overly sticky and is therefore easy to tape down for this project.  CLICK HERE for a link.)

Below you can see one of my sample eggs taped to our classroom window.

 

Mary Cassatt Artist Study Project

I am pretty behind in posting about our artist studies.  We last learned about Mary Cassatt.  We have studied her painting, After the Bath.  We learned that Mary Cassatt loved to paint children and families. 

Our project to go with this artist was self-portraits.  I set this project up as shown below.  When introducing this project I pointed out that Mary Cassatt paid close attention to the details of the people she painted.  Details such as hair color, eye color, etc.  In the set-up below I placed a little mirror on an easel.  I modeled studying my face in the mirror and talked out loud about the shape of my face, color of my hair and eyes, etc.  I kept looking into the mirror and describing the details of my face that I noticed such as my glasses, eyebrows, ears, and earrings.  After describing them I added each detail to my own "face" self-portrait.  After this group lesson, the work was set up for the children to do independently.  I was so thrilled with the attention to detail in their portraits, especially because we had recently done full-body self-portraits for our parent conference portfolios and few of their portraits had as much detail as the ones they drew for this activity. 

Following is a gallery of some of the portraits that were completed during this project.  I love how much they vary...........as well as how much they resemble the sweet little artists who created them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Desert Sunset Art Project

Inspired by a trip I took to Tucson, Arizona last October, we are studying the desert in our classroom right now.  In addition to learning about how deserts look different from our landscape here in Iowa, we are learning about desert animals.  I came up with a little desert art project that has been out on our art shelf for about a week.  I love see how each child's interpretation of this is different.

Below you can see how I've set this up on the shelf:  a paper holder holds gray construction paper half sheets and brown newsprint paper cut into 3 inch wide strips.  The child takes one of each papers and the green tray to their work space.

 

The green tray has a vinyl mat, a textured plastic template, a box of crayons and a basket with a glue stick.  The first step is to place the brown paper onto the textured template and rub it with a brown crayon.  This makes the "sandy" desert ground.  Then they tear the textured piece in half to make it look even more realistic.

 

Before gluing the sandy ground in place, the child uses the various colored crayons to make "sunset stripes" across the gray paper.  Then the sandy ground is glued to the bottom.  We also have traced cactus to pin-punch and children who have punched out a cactus may add it to their desert scene.  Many children are also adding their own artwork which reflects their individual tastes and abilities.  So fun!

I tried to get the next photo to post horizontally but Typepad didn't cooperate.  This was taken while a child was working on it.

 

Here is another variation.  They have really loved making this project!

 

 

Hands and Hearts

For some reason I have really been into painting the children's hands and feet for parent gifts this year.  This is actually the first year I've done any of these hands and feet projects.  A while back I had seen this idea for making a valentine card and knew I wanted to do this with the children to give to their parents.  I won't lie.........it takes a lot of time to do these projects and does take me away from being available to the whole group during work time for a good chunk of time.  However, I have found that the children love it and the parents treasure these keepsakes, so I am really glad we've done them. 

These would make a great gift for grandparents or they'd just be great to do with your own young children to keep as a memento of when their hands were so very small.

In case you are planning to do this with a group of children, here is how I did it.  I had a big bowl of warm soapy water on the table along with some towels.  I also had a dish with red tempera paint and a brush.  I painted the children's hands one at a time and washed them in the soapy water in between (i.e. I painted their right hand, washed it, then painted their left hand and washed it).  If you painted both hands at once it could get pretty messy pretty quickly, I'm just sayin'. 

Another tip is to model with your hand how the child should hold their hand, with fingers together and thumb sticking out.  This can be challenging for the youngest children.  To get a really good "heart" image, you will need to bend the child's thumb down a bit right before pressing their hand to the paper.  I got better at this with practice.  When the two hands are painted and pressed as shown, the white space in the middle resembles a heart shape.  I accentuated this by gluing a little punched out heart in the space.  Of course you could omit that if you prefer.

Since these were parent gifts, I also added a 2X4" shipping label printed with the saying, "Children hold our hearts in the palm of their hands."  If you would like to download and print this label, please click the link below.  It is a document set to print a page of 10 adhesive shipping labels.  If you don't want to print them as labels, you could copy and save the image, print it on a piece of cardstock and print your child's hands directly to that paper.

Download Children hold our hearts labels

Below you can see a finished page.  The pages were actually oriented horizontally and had a name sticker with the child's name in the bottom right corner.  For privacy purposes, I cropped that out in the photo below.

 

Watercolor Resist Snowflakes

This project was inspired by THIS ONE by Kathy Barbro over at Art Projects for Kids.  I love that blog.  So many really awesome ideas.  After doing a trial project, I made some modifications to my original plan for this work.  I'll describe those below.  I have this project set up on my stationary work table as shown below.

Materials needed include:  a damp sponge in holder for wiping the mat after painting, a jar with pencil for writing name on paper BEFORE painting, a little pan with two white crayons, a holder with precut rectangles of gray construction paper.........

(NOTE:  I originally planned to use watercolor paper, but when I did my samples, the liquid watercolors seemed to get the paper too wet and I couldn't see the crayon lines very well through the paint.  Also, drawing with a white crayon on white paper is virtually impossible to see and for young children I found that the gray paper showed the crayon much better.) 

 

........a basket with a paint jar filled with Colorations Liquid Watercolor paint (watered down some).....

 

......I made up these little step-by-step drawing cards to post over the work area.  From experience, I know that these will help my littlest ones be able to independently do this project and they will experience success which will make them SO PROUD!!

Here is a photo of my 5 year old drawing his snowflake.  He was my project tester. 

 

After drawing the snowflake, a watercolor wash is applied to the top of the paper.

 

Then the snowflake is placed on the drying rack to dry. 

 

Snowflake Bracelets

I set up this little bracelet-making activity so my students could make some snowflake bracelets.  I did something similar last year for Valentine's Day.  Sometimes paper punches are pretty hard for young children to use because of the pressure that must be applied to the punch.  One of my parents gave me a paper punch holder that she bought at a garage sale and I thought it would be perfect for this work.  Here is something similar.

 

For this work, I set up a basket with a paper punch and punching pad...........

 

.........a tray with 2 inch strips of white construction paper......

 

,,,,,,,,a bucket of pipe-cleaners.......

............a snowflake punch......... 

.......and the punch holder.  As shown below, you can see how the punch is set up in the holder..... 

 

.........and then pressure is applied to the large lever as shown here.

 

Once the child punches out several snowflakes, the punching tool is used to prick a hole in the center of each snowflake as shown here.

Then the snowflakes can be carefully threaded onto a pipe-cleaner to make a bracelet. 

 

Torn Paper Snow Scene Art Project

This is one of my favorite winter art projects.  I have put it out every year in January.  Below you can see how I've set it up on the art shelf.  To do this work, the child takes one blue paper (construction paper cut in half) and one white paper (2 inch by 9 inch strip of white construction paper) and places them on the tray.  Then they carry the whole tray to their table.

 

I didn't take any photos of the process, so I'll try to explain it.  The first step is to tear the white strip of paper in half lengthwise.  One torn piece is then glued to the bottom of the blue paper to represent the "snowy" ground.  Then the child uses the crayons to draw a "wintry scene".  The final step (if they wish) is to tear small pieces of the remaining white paper.  These little pieces are then glued onto the picture to become the falling snowflakes.  The two examples shown below were completed by children in my class this week.  The top photo shows the "torn" snow and the bottom shows how one child drew their own snowflakes with a white crayon.  I love how sweet and unique each of these creations is.

 

 

Snowflake Making Station

This year for the first time I have set up a snowflake making station.  I decided to set this up on my stationary shelf/table so that the children can stand to do each part of the project without having to move materials back and forth from shelf to table.  Below you can see the first "stage" of this project. 

From top left:  a blue bowl to hold the snowflake "clippings", a pan with scissors, a basket of coffee filters (NOTE:  I kind of flattened them out as much as possible before placing them in the basket), a jar with a pencil for writing names on the finished snowflake, and a placemat.

I gave a group lesson to the entire class on this project.  To do this work, the child first takes a coffee filter and folds it in half "like a taco", then in half again so it looks like "a piece of pizza".  Then, they cut pieces from the sides and top, placing the clippings into the blue bowl.  When finished cutting, they unfold their paper to see the finished snowflake.  At this point, they write their name on the snowflake using the provided pencil.  (It wouldn't make sense to write their name before cutting because they might cut it off!!  However, if they choose to paint their snowflake, the name needs to be written on first.)  Before proceeding to the next "stage", they take the blue bowl to a trash can to empty out their clippings, preparing the work space for the next child.

 

NOTE:  We discovered that it helps some children to have some triangles drawn with pencil for them to cut on.  The photo below shows my assistant, Miss Melissa, drawing some guidelines for a student.  Some students didn't need this, but this modification allowed more children to be successful.  They were so excited to unfold the paper and see their snowflake.

 

The child can choose to leave their snowflake white OR they may choose to paint it.  If they want to paint, the move over to the second "stage" or workspace as shown below. 

From left:  a dish with a sponge for wiping the placemat after painting, the liquid watercolor paint tray from Discount School Supply (NOTE:  I filled the little jars with various hues of blue and violet liquid watercolor paint, made by adding varying amounts of water to the watercolor), a jar of water for rinsing the brush, a butter dish to hold the paintbrush, and a vinyl placemat.

 

Here are some of our pretty finished snowflakes!  I love how they are all unique, just like the little ones who made them.

 

Christmas Tree Art Project

We have a new project out on the art shelf this week.  I like that this project requires the children to align strips of paper of varying lengths to form a Christmas tree.  Perhaps it's a stretch to say so, but this work could be considered an extension of the red rods.

Here is how I have this set up on the art shelf.  From left to right:  baskets for carrying materials to a table, tray of red construction paper (full sheets cut in half), tray with green strips cut into graduated lengths (1 inch wide strips in lengths ranging from 1 to 5 inches), basket of brown "trunks", basket of yellow stars..........

 

........here's a close-up of the divided tray I used for the green strips......

 

.........basket with Tap-n-Glue bottles and a tray with gluing mats.

 

To do this work, the child gathers their supplies and carries them to a table.  They arrange their green strips on the red paper (oriented vertically) and have an adult check before they glue.  A few finished trees are shown below.  I love how they are turning out!

 

Thanksgiving Festivities at school

This week on Monday and Tuesday we had our special monthly activities in the classroom.  With the help of a few moms, the children made individual pumpkin cream pies.  First, we mixed up the pumpkin cream in the classroom at group time.  The recipe is:  1 cup pureed pumpkin, 2 cups milk, 2 boxes instant vanilla pudding, 1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice and 1 cup Cool Whip.  Then the children left the classroom five at a time and made their "crust" with our parent helpers.  To do this, they each got a full size graham cracker and placed it into a quart size ziploc bag.  Then they took a plastic drinking glass and pounded the cracker until it was in crumbs.  They then dumped the crumbs into the bottom of a plastic cup.   You can see one of the students pounding her cracker in the photo below.  It was so funny.......when one group of children returned to the classroom they said, "Hey!  Guess what, Miss Laura?  We just beat up some crackers."  I thought that was such a cute way to express their experience!

After making the crust, they plopped a spoonful of pumpkin cream on top, and another spoonful of extra Cool Whip on top of that.  We refrigerated these and ate them with our snack.  Most of the children really liked the pumpkin cream pie.  It has a light and fluffy texture and a creamier taste than regular pumpkin pie which many children don't like. I love this recipe so much that I'm making it for our family for Thanksgiving.  I'll make a full sized pie with a graham cracker crust made with a little butter and sugar though.  I made up a batch of these to pass out to friends at Halloween and packaged them into half-pint canning jars with a spoon tied on with twine.  You can click HERE to read a post I wrote about that for our local MOPS blog. 

 

Another thing we did is make painted handprint turkeys for the children to take home to their parents as a Thanksgiving memento.  I've never done these before with my class, but I'm so glad we did them.  The parents really seemed to love them and I know they will be treasured mementos of this time when the children are so small.  Below you can see me painting a hand............

 

...........and helping my student press it firmly onto the paper.

 

This shows how it looked right after we painted it.  After it was dry we added legs, a beak and an eye with markers.  I forgot to take a finished photo though!

 

Our final special activity was making special Thanksgiving bracelets to retell the story of the first Thanksgiving.  For a full description of this activity, please CLICK HERE to read the post I wrote about this last year.