fall art

Many of our read alouds in the recent days and weeks have provided a connection to Fall. With a small Fall "still life" along with the stories on display, children have had opportunities to represent their thoughts, ideas, and feelings regarding our current season. We've talked about the colors of Fall and observations we've made in the natural world. We've talked about what is happening to the leaves outside. On Friday, the children read sentences about leaves on the Morning Message in preparation for our read aloud, Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf.

Later during choice, some children chose to use our newest classroom medium - stamps. With a collection of leaf stamps and our special black pens, I modeled how to use the stamps. We talked about how you carefully align the stamp with the ink pad, apply pressure with your palm, and then transfer the ink to paper. I offered the pens as an additional tool to help add detail to their work. We talked about how artists add detail and one way to add detail is to outline. An outline goes around a shape or design. An outline draws attention, it encourages the audience to look. An outline is also another way to explore and practice writing and drawing different kinds of lines.

 

 

In the two pictures below, AM uses colors representative of the colors we find in the natural world to depict leaves and chinese lanterns. Her use of arrows throughout her piece invite her audience to take a closer look at the important details. Looking at her work this weekend, I will check in with AM on Monday and ask her about the arrows - is she interested in writing labels? Do the arrows serve a different purpose? What is the story behind her illustrations and marks?