Friday, September 20, 2013

Surrealism Collage for Preschool





The juxtaposition of disharmonious and unrelated images creating surprise, shock and in this case laughter is an attribute of surrealistic art.  All you need are striking pictures cut from magazines and glue sticks. I gave the kids a choice of images that I knew would dazzle.
Humans were cut apart into head, body and legs to be reconstructed into a new, startling form. Other puzzling images float around them.  
These young children only have the beginning skills to draw suns so that is what we added.  



















Saturday, September 7, 2013

Illuminated Free Form Designs



I was given a box of lighted globes. Oh, thanks. 
What am I going to do with those?
Oh! This!!



Slid the globes out of the box keeping them in their cardboard packing and added these elements.



Felt heart, glazed ceramic test plates from an estate sale, 
flat marbles, and polished rocks. 




Clustered the globes and 
turned the lights out!
Wow!



Ceramic Dish Design


My estate sale scavenger hunting pays off. The colorful dishes are glaze tests from a home ceramics studio and the middle dish was 25 cents. Felt heart from a Valentine's project and flat marbles make for a flashy display in colors.




As a group each child got to pick a glazed dish and a flat marble or polished rock to put on it and then add to the community design.
We discussed color and placement and the children loved it.





Antique Mirror Design



Three is a magic number in art so here we have flat marbles, plastic stars and plastic swizzle sticks. The mirror is probably from the 1930's and found in an attic. The youngest children love this easy design work. So pretty.




Free Form in a Large Frame Design




So simple. Elements are an empty large frame on a black vinyl mat, colored craft sticks, foam stars and wooden rectangles. I have simply started looking in my craft closet for components to create these flexible design works. The beginning to seeing the world in shapes and colors.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Of Nests and Eggs



My hope is to create an engaging object table for observations of bird life with real nests from the neighborhood, hatched egg shells found on the ground, since mama bird tosses them out of the nest to make room for baby, sequence cards, feathers and bird houses.
The objective is for the table to be enticing to children calling to them, "Come! Learn here!"This is the first time I have laid such a variety on a table at once. Usually, Montessori way is to put each activity on a separate tray. Visually, this is exciting. 
A trial run for this teacher!

My excellent 5 Bird Art Projects posting begin here:


A real cardinal nest and egg with sequence cards laid on a bird place mat.


I make a lot of handmade books from magazine pictures



Blue robin egg shells are abundant around my school.



This shows just a small part of a large set of bird story cards. I hand out the pictures to the kids and read the description and they raise their hand to say the name. This is a favorite activity because it starts a lot of discussion.



Drawn Parts of the Feather. Kids can copy this.
Real feather with labels



Drawn Parts of the Feather. Kids can copy this



Bird wing a cat left behind.
Nod to a cultural importance of features




Types of beaks cards with matching photos from 
National Geographic.


Beaks and how they are used.





Bird houses add interest to a nest collection





Enticing object grouping for bird exploration on a floor mat.







Interactive bird object table. I will rotate the lessons to include the above beak, feather and feet lessons





If I was a child I would love to sit here!

I think pulling the unit off the shelf and laying them out as a group will bring a lot of enthusiasm and desire to be involved with this unit. I will station a teacher to guide the children at first.






Tuesday, August 6, 2013

In Search of Reggio

In Search of Reggio

Montessori instruction has been in my blood since 1976. I have been in the classroom all of these years. Being somewhat rebellious, I have done my best work alone in my own school where I can manage my time and follow my own lead minute to minute. Tired of the Pink Tower? We will do art all summer. It has worked well. But, each year I need a new theme to keep things fresh. One year it was setting up my two You Tube channels. 

Last year it was going full tilt on Pinterest, which has opened a huge window for all of us teachers.

Wanting more open creativity in my classroom I started doing free form design using materials in a more flexible way. As I saw similar posts on Pinterest I came to understand this has been done for a long time using “loose parts” in Reggio.
I am awe struck by the way Reggio beautifully presents natural objects for creative exploration.
They have won me over and I will be studying the method and incorporating Reggio’s style and free manner of handling classroom arrangement.

I am excited!



Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Example of an article about Free-Form Design.

Want to ear mark this article. Love it.

MEANINGFUL LEARNING with 
ORGANIC MATERIALS


Excited by Free-Form Designs




I am expanding my Free-Form Design Pinterest page to include ideas I hope to be inspired by this new school year. I have all the nature objects and will give them a new format to be enjoyed with help of these very creative pins.

Here are Free-Form Designs Dundee Montessori has done so far.

Born good? Babies help unlock the origins of morality


Extremely interesting study of baby behavior on 60 Minutes. 

Bubble Painting

 2013 Summer Arts Program has come to a close with this last project. Look at our other cool Summer Arts Program curriculum on the many arts posts below. I have a BFA in Art Education and love using my love of creative arts with the children. 

Bubble Painting 
Another perfect project for toddlers and children who 
cannot draw yet.

In a Styrofoam bowl add a good squirt of dish washing liquid soap, a big squirt of black tempera paint and some water. Mix. 
The child will blow bubbles into it with a straw.




Lay the paper on top of the bubbles




Then we painted around them