Tot School-Art

Last week we worked on Art.  At first the topic was a bit broad for me but once we got into it, I started to appreciate it and I think Mara got a lot out of it.

Books for the week

On Monday we did two craft projects.  The first was a marble painting.  I put a sheet of plain white paper in a tote and put small amounts of paint randomly along it.  I then added a bunch of spiky balls.  Once the lid was on I gave it to Mara to shake.  Of course at first she wasn't interested but after a few shakes of my own she took over.  In the end we let it dry and now she calls it her "boom" painting (aka boom=fireworks).

I then tried a technique I saw on Pinterest to "tie-dye" baby wipes.  We have a ton around here so I grabbed two and rubber banded them.  I let her color one with markers and I did another.  We let them dry overnight and checked them out the next day.  Honestly this didn't really work.  I don't know if we didn't color them enough or what.  I don't think we could of as they started to kind of ruin the markers we used.  So I just chalked this up to a fail.

Our last project was to do some water painting.  Usborne has this amazing water painting book so I just tore out a sheet and gave her some water.  She loved revealing the colors.

Tuesday we did some more art work with paint.  I spread out a large sheet of brown paper (thank you Usborne shipments!) and threw some watered down paint on it.  I gave Mara a blow dryer and let her go to work.   Again it took a while to convince her to try it.  My girl is not a risk taker.  She finally was into it but of course it didn't really work as imagined.  Not sure if it was the paper being crinkly or the paint not runny enough.  In the end we just lifted the paper and watched the paint run around it.

Our second activity was some splat fireworks.  Here I took paint and cotton balls, hid the colors under the cotton and gave her a hammer to reveal it.  She was so into this until her play hammer got paint on it.  Then it was game over.  We had to wash it over and over...

On Wednesday we did some more motion painting.  This time we put the paper in a mason jar with the same spiky balls.  She got to shake it up a ton and we laid it out to dry afterwards.

In the afternoon she was a bit of a terror so we resorted to coloring pages.  This actually really turned out well.  She hasn't strictly colored in awhile so she was ready.  I also let her pick the topic and involved her printing them.

Thursday we did some rainbow paper.  This was achieved by dipping black paper in water with a few drops of clear nail polish in it.  When you remove it the film looks like a rainbow in the sunlight.  This was a fun activity but I think I ruined one of my mixing bowls.  I wish I would have done it in a paper bowl.

The rest of the day we laid low.  We did do a few pages in our Usborne Art Sticker book which was fun.  I love how interested she is in stickers and how she is really getting into the books.  She likes to place them just right and wants to do all the work herself.

I gave her a sheet of paper and her stamps.  I let her go to town with a little free art.  She had a blast creating the shapes and putting the cat stamps inside of them.  I was interested in the fact that she really loved to do the stamps on top of each other.

On Friday we talked a lot about colors and read one of our favorite Usborne books "Big Book of Colors".  I also printed off an activity page for her to do along with the book that talked about primary and secondary colors.  I think the topic may be a bit over her head but it was good to introduce her to it again.  I think if I would have done this page with paint she may have been more engaged.  We could have mixed the primary colors to reveal the secondary ones.  We used crayons and it didn't have the same effect.

Next week we're talking about hygiene and I think it is really coming at a good time.  She hates brushing her teeth all of a sudden and we've been really harping on her to cover her mouth when she sneezes.  Let's hope these are two topics we can make progress on!