sey079

In Disguise!

Young children need lots of multi-sensory activities. As an art teacher and parent I have learned to be aware of these things while teaching and creating lessons. There is always that one kindergarten student that decides to mix up ALL the c o l o r s because in his mind, no matter what you say, it is going to make a rainbow! Once they see that it makes a muddy brownish grey, they won’t do it again. They learn from their experiences! Much of the brain wiring and development during the first five years is centered around the way a child gleans information about their environment.   Play soft music without words in the background Give them different textures to feel, draw on sand paper!   Let them touch the paint. Add p e pp er mi nt or vanilla extract to make the paint smell good! Add cinnamon to your play dough, spray the paper with something that smells nice,use shaving cream Make sure there are lots of   c o l o r s in your class room Let them build sculptures out ...

We have so many amazing artists in our district! If you missed the batik class, see my last post, it was awesome!  For one of our staff development classes we were so lucky to have Mrs. Mary Tavares teach us about making jewelry! If you are interested in purchasing any of her beautiful pieces above or have questions, here is her info! Check out her website here http://metalliccreations.blogspot.com Mary brought a variety of metal sheets to work with. You can use colored sheets or silver sheets and color them with a permanent marker.. You can buy the metal here http://bonniesbest.com You can use a variety of molds to press into the metal. Here is where she bought these, and the tools http://tensecondsstudio.com She brought a variety of pendants and rings that you can get online or at craft stores just press the ring/pendant against the metal to measure its size/shape. Then cut it out and press your design into it. After you press the design, you can remove the color from the top wit...

UPDATE!!! I got an amazing comment from Phyl...if you are going to do this, you might try these tweaks to my lesson that was left in the comments section by one of the greatest art teachers, Phyl, that ever lived!! I used to do crayon batik every year when I taught 7th and 8th graders. It was one of my favorite things to do. We also did some 'authentic' batiks with clear wax and multiple dye baths. Anyhow, your results are absolutely lovely.    I did a few things a little differently when I did batik with my classes. First of all, we put our wax in muffin tins floating in electric fry pans - that way you don't have to worry about cracking glass. We used some paraffin and then added crayon color. The paraffin crackles quite nicely, and extends the crayon color so you don't need to use quite so many crayons. We also had a couple of wax melter units that could be used for smaller amounts of wax. For fabric, to save money we used old white sheets. The whiter the fabric, the...