Making Paint with Spices and Berries

Summer is flying by us and it is hard to believe we did this project two weeks ago!

The children were set up with an invitation to make paints using turmeric, mulberries, tea and coffee. 

Before our art time fun began, some of the children helped collect the berries for our fun.

We first started by picking the berries, but many were too high, so in the end I shook the limbs of the tree and the berries rained down on the children.

Since we were not eating the berries, we had no problem gathering them from the ground to fill our container.

While the children played a little inside I set up little containers with the berries, tea, turmeric, and coffee.  I also set out some test tubes, funnels, a strainer, pipettes, and paint trays.

We first passed around the different items to see if the children could guess what was in each container.

This little guy was excited to let everyone know that it was coffee he was smelling

The one item that stumped everyone was the raspberry tea, but they enjoyed smelling and working with that one the best.

The children filled their test tubes with the items they wanted then added water and mixed them around to make a type of watercolor paint.

The berries they had to smash down in the tube with the pipette to get the colors release.  

After they made their watercolors they strained their concoctions into their paint trays. 

They actually made some wonderful colors that the children later painted with on watercolor envelops.

Flower Printing

This year for summer camp, I have decided to have a theme for each two week summer session.  The first session is flowers and plants.  This was a lovely project that we did, and to be honest I was not prepared for the sweetness these children displayed while in the garden, it was precious. 

The children each had the opportunity to cut a flower to place in the basket

We then took a short nature walk to collect dogwood flowers.  

I mean really, how adorable is this scene!

While the children played a little bit inside, I set the table with the invitation to print with their flowers.

They were so attentive during this whole process, some taking the time to press each little petal down on their paper.

This little one discovered that if you twirled the flower with paint on it, the colors all blended together like a pin wheel.

The older children were presented with a similar invitation to create.

I love the overlay of flower prints.

Of course you can't have a tray of paint without someone doing some hand prints. 

 What I love about offering children the opportunity to do process driven artwork, is that the work that is created is authentic, and beautiful.

Summertime Games to Keep Cool

We started our Summer Camp last week, and it has been hot and humid!  To help the children keep cool but still enjoy being outside, my husband offered up this camp game.  The children were divided up into three teams.  Each team had a bowl of water and a measuring cup.  They had to fill their measuring cup and run it to the other side with it placed on top of their head.

Inevitably, if you are running with a container of water on your head, you are bound to get a little wet!

 

They would race to the other side and dump the water into another container.  The aim was to try to get as much water from one bowl into the container across the way, and cool off a little as they did so. 

Some of the kids realized how wet traveling with a container of water on their heads could get them, and got clever about it and just ran with their containers to the other side.

Even the big kids got in on the fun!!!

After the race we checked out the containers to see which one had the most water.

We first looked at the red ones that were the same size and determined which of the two had the most, and then we watered the plants with the container with the least amount.

After we emptied the container with the lesser amount of water, we then poured the clear container into the empty red container to see which of the two had the most.  It was a nice way to get a little measurement lesson thrown into the fun.  We talked about how a larger container looks like it has less, but when we place the contents in the same container as the one that looks like more, we can get a more accurate measurement (of course that works best when I don't accidentally pour some of that water on the ground:) 

Our fun continued with other outside play such as walking on balance beams...

And having a car wash, and boy did these cars need it!

Our cars looked wonderful when the day was done!