Winter Trees -- Mixed Media

Winter Trees on a Snowy Day

Mixed Media Art Project for Kindergarten Kids

This week, even though the weather has been beautifully mild lately, we are working on creating winter trees (which will later be displayed at the holiday show).

The kids began with the background of our snowy scene. We talked about color and brainstormed about what we thought the colors of a cold winter sky might include. Using watercolor (and lots of water) the kids filled their pages with swirls of winter color.

Then the children began work on a paper mosaic which will (next week) be transformed into trees. For this the kids were asked to glue multi colored squares of tissue paper and construction paper onto a second piece of watercolor paper. This is a sticky job but they did well.

In next weeks class we will take the mosaic papers and cut out trees. These trees will be glued onto the snowy watercolor background. The kids can then add details. Holly berries, snowflakes etc. You will see the final pieces next week!

Also, don't forget to stop in to MMS if you can and see the robots! The kids are very proud of them. They are on display in the main hall and look incredible!

Robots!

Make Your Own Robots! 

Kindergarten robot creations from found materials.

This two week project began with an invitation for the kids to name all the things that a robot can do or be.We talked about how robots are usually made: what parts are typical (head, arms, body and legs) and what parts might be unusual (wheels, lightning bolt hands (!), antennae).

With these ideas as the spark of inspiration, the kids were each given a large piece of construction paper, a bottle of elmers glue and a variety of precut cardboard pieces. They were encouraged to add as many layers and features to their robots as they wanted. They could cut any of the cardboard pieces to suit their needs.

Next class the cardboard robots were painted silver, carefully cut off their construction paper background and laid out to dry. While the robots were drying the kids worked on drawing a space scene on black construction paper. Kids added stars, planets, suns, shooting stars, and moons as they liked. Then the (now dry) silver robots were glued onto the outer space background.

After that I presented the kids with a variety of small found objects: buttons, pennies, beads, sparkles, and pipe cleaners to name a few. They added these to their robots in any manner they liked. As you can see the results were amazing!