Don't be surprised if your child scolds you the next time you throw out a spent marker. Today we bundled markers that were no longer useful for coloring, wrapped a rubber band around them and placed them point side down in jars. We poured water into the jars and watched as the water magically became colored. We made liquid watercolors! We will test out our colors tomorrow in our studio work. We gathered around clay slabs and found objects that made interesting marks in the clay. We could use the objects to cut the clay, poke it and make lines in it. We also could make the objects stand up in the clay. In our small groups, we learned the printmaking process of getting your paper ready, inking your brayer, rolling the ink onto your print plate, and then transferring the ink to the paper, carefully to avoid smudges. In our other small group we added color to the tubes we had glued to boards earlier in the week. It was hard work to cover the tubes with paint. During free exploration time, we enjoyed exploring colored film that changed the look of the room and our friends. Kelley's husband Danny dropped by during lunch and saved some friends from uninvited bugs who decided to picnic with us today. Today we gathered around clay that was formed into rectangular prisms. The clay didn't stay in that form for long! Soon nests, eggs and birds appeared. And then, the mama birds were desperate to feed their babies. Many small worms were made, but then a large snake showed up to the party. We pulled out mesh to show how the imprint could make snake skin. Soon we had many scaly snakes and found other creative uses for the mesh.
In small groups we put details on our found object sculptures and continued to explore printing. We also made print plates by creating designs on wooden boards with foam stickers. We'll be learning the printmaking process tomorrow. This morning we gathered around clay that was presented in the shape of balls. We noticed yesterday that this was a shape they were interested in making and we wanted to see how they might move beyond the ball. When one child poked her finger deep inside one of the balls, Susan took the opportunity to teach how to make a pinch pot to the group. Another friend said that he thought the result looked like a nest. And so it began....Everyone was trying out the new skill to make a nest and then placed it on the board. Then we needed eggs and birds. Our nest count was 15, or was it 21? It's hard to tell when your preschoolers don't exactly have one-to-one correspondence as they count. What ever the number, it was a wonderful example of children working together toward a common goal, exchanging skills and knowledge, and sharing a limited resource so that everyone could be a part of the project. Not bad for 10 kids around one clay board! In our small groups we began found object sculptures. The children looked in books for inspiration for their sculptures and then we constructed the bodies. Tomorrow we will add the details. In our other small group, we collaged cut paper tubes on our painted boards from yesterday. During free exploration, we painted, worked in the message center, tested out stamps (as a pre-cursor to printing), played with balls and tunnels, returned to clay, collaged in the tinker room and had duck and milkshakes in the restaurant. See you tomorrow! We had such a nice opening to our camp week with our preschool friends today. We opened around clay and were happy to see that everyone was willing to dig their hands right in. We rolled balls, made coils and many friends found ways to make their clay stand up. The pictures show how our work evolved throughout the day, with everyone exchanging skills and ideas. After our gathering activity, we split up for small group work. Susan and her friends mixed paint, starting with the primary colors and white in squeeze bottles. The children explored what would happen if they mixed two of the colors together, and then they were encouraged to make more of the color they mixed. The paints were then used to cover a board that will be used in a project that we work on every day. We also made the paint available to use at the easels during free exploration. In Kelley's group, we explored the kinds of marks we could make with everyday items if we dipped them in black paint. The children enjoyed discussing what the items were used for: "Oh, I had medicine in this!" and "Tic-tacs were inside here!" They then made designs on colored paper. We ate snack and lunch on the patio where we heard the sounds of the metro and enjoyed people watching from our perch. The children also explored enormous planters on the patio and even tried to move them! During our free exploration time, many friends worked together to create a kitchen that was eventually connected to a restaurant that served iced mango-lemon tea and soup. Designing the kitchen and collecting the ice for the tea required a lot of cooperation and team work. Friends also painted at the easel, worked in the message center, explored lenses (ice) on the sensory table, added color to their found object prints and returned to clay. "An army of snowmen" with silly tops was created on the clay board. We hope you enjoy the pictures from our first day. We look forward to seeing everyone tomorrow! UpCycle is a winner of ACTion Alexandria's Green Ideas Challenge 2015. The organization's idea for making Alexandria a greener, more sustainable place to live, work, and play was to help seventy kindergarteners and ten teachers at Cora Kelly School learn and create with "trash." UpCycle demonstrated to children and teachers that waste materials can be a resource for scientific observations and artistic expression. UpCycle Creative Reuse Center is an Alexandria City based arts materials resource center and a creative making space that encourages creativity, critical thinking, innovation and environmentally sustainable behavior. UpCycle rethinks the notion of waste, collecting cast-offs from our community to serve as creative art materials. UpCycle collects, organizes and prepares items for use in a variety of creative capacities and makes them available to the public at affordable prices. UpCycle demonstrates that artistic creativity and conservation go hand in hand through creative reuse. Creative reuse is an effective response to ever-filling landfills, over production, and diminishing natural resources. Creating shifts in our community's behavior when it comes to waste reduction starts with our educating youngest citizens about their ability to make a difference. In May 2015 as a part of UpCycle's green ideas grant, co-founders Susan Miranda and Kelley Organek visited each of the four kindergarten classrooms at Cora Kelly for scientific explorations. Children played a guessing game with materials from UpCycle's shop by placing their hands into a container and describing the properties of one of the items without looking at it. Students used words like flat, round, smooth, bumpy, and cold to share the properties of the materials with their classmates. Students then guessed what the items could be before the true identities were revealed. Many of the items were common, everyday objects like cork, plastic lids, CDs and metal screws. By describing the properties of the objects without looking at the objects, Susan and Kelley were able to engage students in a discussion about what the materials could be used for, i.e., "What can a round, smooth, plastic object for used to create?" and not exclusively focus on what the items once were. Susan and Kelley gave each teacher the book My Dog is as Smelly as Dirty Socks by Hanoch Piven to read aloud before their next visit. This book depicts a girl who makes portraits of her family members using found objects. Students were also encouraged to consider what waste items they had at home that could be used for creating and they were invited to bring these items to school to compile a reuse collection in their art classroom. Susan and Kelley's subsequent visits took place in the art room where students were invited to create a portrait out of reuse materials. Small bits (bottle caps, fabric scraps, etc.) from UpCycle's shop were displayed for the students. Susan and Kelley talked about the parts of the face to help children focus their collection of items needed for their portraits. After students selected their materials, they made a plan for their portraits by laying the materials on boards. If all of the parts of the face were there, the students were provided glue to make it permanent. UpCycle's unit offered students an exploratory and playful way to discover the properties of materials and consider creative reuse as an alternative to throwing items away. Many students brought items from home or saved containers from lunch to add to the materials collection. Furthermore, students were able to learn vocabulary words through hands-on scientific explorations and art experiences. The Green Ideas Challenge 2015 grants were generously funded by The Dominion Foundation.
During this session, we are focusing on 3-D art and ways to build-up with our materials. In our first class session, we opened with the challenge of making paper stand up. We noticed that our friends tried many solutions to meet this challenge, making adjustments as they observed the successes of other friends. Below are some examples of how our paper was changed to make it stand up. Continuing with folding and manipulating paper, our friends have tried making many origami shapes. This activity requires skills and precision and it's amazing to see how the children persist in their small groups. Now our folded shapes are becoming integrated into mobiles. The mobile art integrates physics, as the children test different ways to balance their designs. Our other group is working on wire sculptures with the initial challenge of building up. As we have explored using wire and integrating other materials, our friends have begun to design people, animals and even a playground. Some of our friends have realized that their designs are gravity-challenged because they are too tall, heads are too heavy, or the sculpture base is too narrow. All of these are important generalizations the children have learned from tinkering and working together. There is a lot of process oriented work going on! In our late winter session of our Materials Playgroup, we are exploring 3-D art and design. There are many reuse materials that our friends have been using to explore this concept, and we have provided opportunities for children to acquire and fine-tune new skills. Each week, we gather around exploring clay. Then, the studio is open where we have a sensory bin full of lids, balls and tunnels, cutting, gluing, taping, mark making and painting. We are also exploring wire and stringing. We have been working on a project that builds on the work done in previous weeks. First we glued cut cardboard tubes on canvas and cut additional materials for the mixed media collage. After two weeks of gluing, we added paint. Stay tuned for updates on where we take our project next!
Drop-In our open studio time on Saturday mornings from 10a - 1p for some creative fun. A facilitated activity will be provided in our studio. You can also bring your own project, and/ or purchase some materials for use in our studio. The fee is $5 per person, $15 max. per family. Here are some examples of past Drop-In Studio artwork. Scroll your cursor over images for captions. This week in Kids Workshop, we gathered around sorting a table full of donations. We placed items in categories: paper, toys, bottle caps and more! In small groups, we printed our blocks that we made last week. We followed a printing process of getting our paper ready, inking, and printing. One challenge was to keep our printing space and fingers clean, so unwanted smudges would not appear on our work. It was a busy session and we think it's safe to say that many will not need to buy Valentine's Day cards this year! In our other small group, we tested our hand-eye coordination by hammering bottle caps in a log. After a little practice, we moved to making a bottle cap snake. We noticed that certain hammers worked better for this activity, as the weight of the head made a difference in how many whacks we had to make to punch a hole in the cap. This week in Middle School Studio, we used our blocks to print cards. We followed a process of getting our paper ready, inking, and printing, all the while trying to keep our fingers and workspace clean so unwanted smudges would not appear. It was quite a productive session! Once our prints were dry-ish, we learned about signing our prints by including the title, artist's signature and number in the series. |
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