Candle Making

 

We attended a Yuletide Festival this December and one of the things that my daughter and I enjoyed the most was the candle making.  I thought it was so beautiful watching the children walk slowly around a table and dipping sticks with wicks tied on them into beeswax and then cold water.  They continued this rhythm until they had a wonderful candle.

 

I of course got home and couldn't wait to do it with my older kids on Tuesdays and after school.

 

 

Fortunately, I had all the materials.  I am regularly given  coffee tins which I used in a pot of hot water as a double boiler.  I first melted down the wax in a larger tin and pot on the stove top, and then transferred the wax into a smaller, taller tin and pot of water that I kept on the warm setting on the hot plate.

 

 

As the children walked around our table, they dipped their wicks into the wax, let it drip, then dabbed it onto a piece of wax paper.  They then walked over to the cold water and dipped the candle into the water.

 

As the children walked around we played some Holiday music.

We did this project on two different occasions.  The first was during one of the days of Hanukkah and we talked about honoring the light and the mitzvah of Hanukkah.

The second time we did this project in the afternoon with a small group, this particular day was the day before Winter Solstice and we discussed that we were approaching the shortest day of the year, and that we are bringing our own light into the world through making our candles.

Both felt like a sweet way to honor the concept of light and the importance of it in our lives.

 

 

It was very exciting for the kids to see their candles grow each time they walked around the table.

We had a wonderful time enjoying the simple process and ease of making these candles.

One student used her candle on her Daddy's birthday cake, how sweet!

Here are some of our candles.

Engaging the Mind with Play

One of the dynamics that I love at school is introducing a couple tools for exploration and seeing where this will lead the children in their play. 

There are many articles and books in favor of and emphasizing the power of play for early childhood.  One of the biggest proponents for play is that it increases intelligence.  Some scoff at this idea, but when I watch the children play at school, I see first hand their minds busy at work as their bodies move excitedly from one adventure to the other.

These pictures show the way they explore and problem solve in their play.

The children love playing with cars and trucks at school.

I have gathered many different sized tubes, and I will often place them on the rug and see what sort of journey the cars and trucks will be taking during free play.

This particular day I offered up PVC connector with different tunnel options.

 

The boys were attempting to get the cars and trucks to go through the side tunnels, not just the one straight ahead.

They felt further investigation was needed, and took out the flashlights to look at the make up of the pipe.

They discovered many things, the first being that when you shine the flashlight through the tube, the light travels to the different tunnels.

At a certain point, they no longer wanted to have the cars move through the tunnels, instead they wanted to see how the light moves through the tunnels.

It was a simple game, but the play stimulated exploration, which stimulated more questions, this in turn brought about more exploration to answer these questions.  They were building problem solving skills, but more importantly, they were having fun and enjoying the learning process.

And my boys weren't the only ones exploring with tubes, at that same moment

the girls were off to the side trying to see how many tubes it would take to reach the ceiling.

This led to them trying to construct their own building.

Play and exploration often move in this direction, children at this age are so eager to learn.

When I taught high school I would long to see this kind of spark in the kids; a desire to learn how the world works. At some point in time, many children and adults lose the passion for a love of learning.  I know for myself there have been many moments where I have not felt it, but if we can foster it day to day with these little ones, my hope is that it will stick as they continue on with their schooling and life.

 





Winter Walk Collaborative Painting

 

Two weeks ago we had an opportunity to make a collaborative project for an area school art show exhibit. The exhibit was at the Hudson Opera House, and the opening was the evening of Winter Walk.  Literally thousands take to the streets of Hudson, and many visit the Opera House as they are the ones who put together the Winter Walk.  If you travel to a back room and look up on the wall, there is our lovely group painting.  We even won an award!

 

The thing I found most impressive about this painting created by the children is that they all worked together on it, but also the layers of colors, and materials, that came together in a very captivating and free way.

I tried to offer the children their favorite art processes to work with.

So we first started off with spray bottle painting.  They also layered cardboard cut outs on the canvas to leave the impression of these shapes after they spray painted.

 

After spray painting for some time, I took out another favorite of the kids and that is using watered down acrylic paints and eye droppers.

Here is what the painting looked like after the first day.

Later some of the children used a hot glue gun with white crayons in instead of glue.

They used the wax to draw an outline around some of the shapes made from the cardboard cutouts.

On another day the children layered tissue paper all over the canvas and then used water

in eyedroppers to make the colors from the tissue paper bleed onto the canvas.  This added another layer of color and dimension.

Continuing through the week, our next group did printmaking on the painting using rollers and stamps.

For one of the last layers the children sprinkled broken crayon bits and

beeswax on the canvas and then using a tacking iron they melted the wax onto the painting.

some drew into the melted wax.

And for the final touch they added mirror sticker to the painting.

Here it is hanging at the Opera House.

At the preschool age I feel the process is more important than the product, however the end product that came out of their process has an organic, beautiful finale that I just love and cannot wait to hang in the school.

 

Circles All Around Us

Shapes are a part of our daily lives.  As an adult I don't go around seeing all the shapes around me, however the joy of teaching preschoolers is that when you start talking about a shape such as a circle, all of a sudden the world is filled with circles. 

When we discussed circles a couple of weeks ago, one of the concepts we addressed was that in many cultures artwork done in a circle is called a Mandala, which is the Sanskrit word for circle.  When we talked about Mandalas  we talked about how it is an art form that is usually made as a healing or calming art.  A lot of mandalas are temporary art forms, and once they are made they are then  disassembled again, such as Tibetan sand mandalas.  Their projects for the week were simple arrangements that the children made on a variety of circles and then they practiced drawing different circles.

These sensory experiences proved to be very calming indeed.  I found that each of the children had their own unique way of working with the materials and creating patterns.  They also were very much captivated by the experience.

The invitation to create

On one of the days we had large circles that the children added shapes and gems to.

I loved how they approached their use of materials.

Another day we worked with smaller circles.  This little guy was a pro at making patterns with the materials.

Look at the focus on their faces.



That smile expresses how a simple and tactile experience can bring so much joy to children at this age.

After the children experimented with their mandala making, they then were given several different circle shapes to try and trace. Though I am not an advocate of tracing pictures, tracing shapes is a wonderful way to work on hand-eye coordination.

                                       

After they traced their shapes they were encouraged to draw around or in their shapes anyway they would like.