Amazing Abstract Shape Art

This term we have been learning about shapes, in celebration of this we created these amazing abstract shape pictures.

 

 I asked the children to chose several shapes to carefully trace around, making sure to overlap the shapes to create a new smaller shape. They used pastel to colour each shape a different colour before painting dye over the whole picture. The children then selected one small shape to cover with glitter.

 

 I can't take credit for this great art idea, but check out this blog post by Use Your Coloured Pencils.

Off to The Big Top!

 We put on our red noses and clown hats this morning and went off to the big top to perform in the J-Block Circus for Discovery this morning.

 The children made the clown hats from coloured card and stickers. Peeling and sticking stickers is a good fine motor activity to practise in preparation for writing.

 On the way to the circus we decorated popcorn cups and watched popcorn explode from the popcorn poppers! Yum!

We sold circus tickets in the ticket booth using our play money, and wore these circus masks from Sparklebox.

We also coloured in mini circus books to take home and cut out these cute paper circus animals.

In Room 4 we have also been reading and practising the actions for this cute clown poem.

Cross Country

A few photos from our cross country today.

Ready to start.

  Nearly finished!

 Yellow House.

 Blue House.

 Red House.

Green House.

Folding Fish 2014

 These are the latest additions to our classroom - cute folding fish swimming merrily through the seaweed hanging above our home corner.

 We used crayon and dye wax resist to make these happy fish. 

First put the fish on a textured surface (you can get a copy from here), then use the side of a wax crayon to rub over the paper. We used the concrete just outside our classroom to create scales for our fish.

  

 

Carefully cut out the fish. When I teach children to use scissors I talk about a helping hand to hold the paper and a scissor hand to use the scissors. The helping hand moves the paper around as the scissors cut. It is important the the thumb stays in the top hole of the scissors and the next 1 or 2 fingers go in the bottom hole. You can also get left handed scissors for children who are left handed. 

 Use a brightly coloured dye to paint over the fish and create the wax resist. 

Once the fish is dry you can glue it to coloured paper and fold it together using the small slits by the tail.

We have also been reading this poem 'Once I Caught a Fish Alive.'

Caterpillars and Butterflies 2014

Check out the caterpillar and butterfly activities that we explored today for Discovery, and luckily, later on in the afternoon a monarch butterfly emerged from its chrysalis. Nearly perfect timing!

From the top left; butterfly wands, light box, Hungry Caterpillar story cards, butterfly sounds, painted symmetrical butterfly, egg carton caterpillar, butterfly net for bubble catching, chalk boards, more butterfly wands, chalk drawings outside, another symmetrical painted butterfly, and bubbles to catch in the butterfly net.