Last week we tried our hand at wet-on-wet watercolor painting for the first time. This technique allows children to explore not only the process of painting, but the feeling each color evokes. I'm just beginning my journey of discovery in this process, and am excited to learn about new, fun ways to engage the children in their artwork. This particular method introduces our color friends--red, yellow and blue--as characters in stories which encourage the children to use their imaginations and paintbrushes to express their ideas about what the colors do and how they interact (are blue and yellow feeling timid, in their separate places on the paper, or are they rolling and playing together to unite and make green?). I'll be interested to see how the children interpret the stories and, more to the point, if this is an activity they are interested in continuing to do.
Outdoors we learned a new way to play with color: by pounding spent flower petals onto paper with rocks. The children were visibly curious and delighted to see the bright colors of our primroses transferred onto the plain, white paper. It will be interesting to explore which flowers will give their color up as our garden fills in over the next months, and it's an activity I hope that we can come back to.
We also explored color in the large washtub. This is the evolution of our play on some days: we first filled the tub with some warm, soapy water; once the bubbles diminished (we got very quiet and put our heads close by to listen for the soft sound of those teeny bubbles popping), we added a bit of food color and voila!- blue water. Not content with one color, red was added and naturally, the color changed to a very pink purple. "That's red" said one child. Time to introduce the correct information! I filled a container with water separate from the tub and then we added the red, observing the brighter, truer color, and then added this to the water in the tub. So, too, went yellow. Instead of turning brown, once the yellow was blended into the mix, it turned a very lovely golden color. The children moved onto using the water mill and experimenting with marbles to see if they could slow the water moving through the hole at the top, where the water is poured in. One child invented a game in which she placed a marble in a mill wheel, then tried to catch it in a measuring cup. So, color, science and fine motor skills all got a great workout around the tub.
Outdoors, too, water seems to be the best toy ever. We spent a lot of time hauling watering cans all over the yard, making a nice patch of mud and ensuring our flowers are getting enough to drink. The seeds we planted the week before are sprouting, and the children were excited to see the evidence of life in the planter; the sprouts are a variety of green. The differences of each sprout will be more easy to observe as they grow.
More moments from our week:
Little sparks of dramatic play: the children once again made "smoothies" in the rice bin; held a tea party complete with dancing and wearing necklaces; long blocks were used as vacuums during our clean-up time; and we had three trains chug-a-choochooing through the rooms.
Pom-poms were created especially for scissors practice. These yarn loops are a challenge to cut, so after a bit the children went back to cutting paper and coloring the scraps.
We tried "chalk-dip" artwork; colored chalk is dipped into white paint and then the child can draw on dark paper with it. We had a range of results; one child loved the paint so much that the chalk color was all but invisible. At one point, the children came up with the idea of "writing" in the paint (on the paper) with chopsticks, so these were supplied. They also enjoyed dumping a little paint on the paper and making thumbprints.
On Thursday we took a neighborhood walk, admiring the crocuses and collecting sweet gum pods in our pockets.
Have you ever heard an opera about raspberries? Well, our kids sang a very short one, all of a minute, in sweet little operatic voices. The lovely "Raahhhss-berrieees!" were exulted in trilling voices. A short celebration, but a celebration indeed!
See you soon
