Painted Pine Cones

These are a nice fall decoration for the door. Simply gather some pine cones on a nature walk,

paint them with a Fall palette of colors. A final touch that the children love is to sprinkle glitter on them. these will be strung together and hung from the entrance way to the school.

Leaf Creations

Leaf Creations for Fall and Thanksgiving

This Fall we were really inspired by Lois Elhert's book Leaf Man and Look What I can do with a Leaf! by Morteza E. Solti.

This story and how-to-book illustrate how to make pictures using leaves. The children first laid

out their leaves on their paper and created an image they wanted to glue down. Then of course they

went to town gluing their creations.

this is a "Cow!" by Autumn

and a" Kitty Cat Face" created by Elianna

Then for Thanksgiving we decided to try and make Turkeys.

this time they used Indian corn for the bodies, and leaves and feathers for the tails.

Little Expressions

Sometimes the kids say the funniest things at school, here are some gems that I am finally getting to write.

11/19/11
Jasper- "When I see a worm I feel like a worm."
Myles- "When you're a worm, you're a worm."

12/ 1/ 11

Jasper- "He said you have no lingo, Myles' doesn't have no lingo!"
Autumn- "I say, yada, yada, yada."
Elianna- "I say Doo, do , Doo, Do, Dodoo."
Myles-"I said...I'm thankful for my Mommy and Daddy."

(It was an interesting mis-communication)

"If I had a Hammer"

An aspect of The Reggio Emilia Approach that I really love is giving children real tools and materials.

I believe strongly in the abilities of young children, and that with a little effort and patience in assisting and showing children how to really work a tool, they will gain the skills to do it on their own. 

I have been wanting for some time to create a genuine construction area.  This area has not come to fruition as quickly as I would like, but I felt I had put off using tools for too long.  To get them started we began to use hammers and tacking nails in our pumpkin we grew this summer in the garden.  I didn't have the heart to carve this pumpkin because it was so beautiful, so we had it as a decoration, but it lived a good life and now is our hammering block. We also use pliers and the end of the hammers to take the nails out.  It is a great way to work on fine motor skills.  I can't wait to see what is next!

Thank You to Our Beautiful Pumpkin!

measuring the pumpkin and table.

Elianna stated that the table was "20-13-80 inches long."

The Tire Project

I Love the days at school when unexpected projects emerge.

One day we were playing with some tires I had picked up at a garage.

I asked the kids if they liked how the tires were set up.

They said they couldn't really play that much with them, so I asked them if they would like to

make a tunnel out of them.

This was a hit. We began to dig a hole to place the bottom part

of the tires in the ground.

They then busied themselves with filling the tires in with the earth we had

dug up.

Here are a couple shots of how we originally had the tires.

Here are our industrious kids hard at work!

Here is the finished project. So far it has been a slide,

a dragon's perch, a hide out, and a horse!

Thanksgiving Time at Art and Soul Preschool

Giving Thanks

We all know the story of the Pilgrims and Native Americans joining together to share in a Harvest feast.

We also know Thanksgiving to be a time of gathering family together and a well cooked and adored meal.

However over the years I have noticed that the "Thanks" of Thanksgiving has been a rather small part of the holiday, perhaps some never even pause to offer up thanks.

When I was thinking about what I would like my daughter to get from the holiday it wasn't a traced hand of a turkey.  I wanted her to develop a genuine appreciation for what she has and to give thanks.

I wanted this to be a part of the craft that the children would be doing at school as well.

So instead of the traditional turkey hand, which is very cute, but alas not what I wanted to offer, instead we actually took time to look at real Turkey feathers.

The children were then given a feather of their own to be painted, but before the painting began

they were given white crayons to color on the feather form, and then used water colors to create

a wax resist effect on the feathers.

They then added a piece of leather and beaded the feather, a conceptual design similar to the feathers Natives wear.

On the back of these feathers, the children offered up what they were thankful for.

The feathers were wonderful, and I felt they honored the holiday and bird they would be eating, as we also talked about thanking turkeys for their lives on this day.

Day of The Dead Celebration

Día de Muertos

Dia de Muertos, or Day of the Dead is a Mexican Holiday celebrated throughout  Mexico and the world.

It is a time to remember those who are no longer with us and the celebrate in the life we have.

I have always held this holiday in my heart since I lived in New Mexico and saw the way life and death are celebrated and honored. 

In our own little way we celebrated this day.

We first created Papel Picados ( paper cutouts) which often are displayed in banners that stretch across the room and Day of the Dead alter.

I prepped the paper by doing an accordion fold and then the children went to town cutting

This was of course a well loved activity because the kids LOVE using scissors, but they

 were also excited to see what patterns they made after unfolding the paper

Nothing like Sombreros on the heads of these little ones, the hats were half the size of these girls!

Here is our play space decorated with Papel Picados I made years ago with students when I was teaching high school art.

Another project we did was to take coffee filters and use fall colored washable markers to color them in.

Then taking an eyedropper with water, the children watched as the colors bleed into each other

After they dried, they scrunched them together and tied them together with a pipe cleaner

The result were these beautiful colored flowers that we placed on the Day of the Dead alter.

Along with the hand made flowers, the children threaded garlands using mums.

These too were added to the alter we created.

It was a beautiful celebration, we drummed and each went up to the alter

and said a little thank you to whatever the children felt they wanted to celebrate.

I heard them say things like, "thank you Mommy and Daddy," "thank you food,"

"thank you doggies," "thank you flowers."

It was really sweet.  The intention was them to celebrate something that meant something to them. 

It did not have to be the traditional honoring of the dead,

I think life and death are important to celebrate at this time and it was

nice to see them expressing the things that mean something to them at the precious age of 2, 3 and 4.