by Carmel Andrada & Mariel Eunice Chavez
In our new unit "How We Express Ourselves," we were able to discover and express ideas,
feelings and nature through art. We just finished our nature walk and found out that colors
are everywhere.
Discovering traces of art that we see in our surroundings was so much fun! Through stories
we have also learned that we can be as creative and imaginative as we want. Boxes, bottles
and papers turned into a masterpiece like a house, truck or a rocket ship. We have learned
to enjoy the process of creating and exploring materials such as paint and nature, to learn
more about ourselves.
To begin our unit, we had an "Invitation to Create" using different materials presented to
us. Feeling and exploring the textured materials using our hands was so much fun! After
sticking the materials into the letters, we were able to form the word ART! Aside from this,
we also had various activities that helped us express ourselves. Through paint, we
discovered that getting our hands messy with colors is a good thing. We used our hands to
feel the paint and created handprints of different colors. Using marbles to explore paint was
also an activity we enjoyed doing together. We saw how two colors created a new one!
Amazing!
Who says stories are boring? We love a good story any time of the day. After listening to the
stories "Mix It Up" and "The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse" our interest in colors grew
even more. The book "Mix It Up" was about mixing colors to create a new one. During
activity time, we tried mixing the colors ourselves, and it was a sight to see! The book "The
Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse" helped us appreciate the work of others. We found out
that there is no limit to creativity---- we can use any color that we want. We are all artists!
Our inquiry about lines was eventful. We're able to see it, create it and play with it! We
found out that there are different kinds of lines. Making a straight line was easy, but the
zigzag and curvy lines were a bit tricky. After making them, we painted different colors on
them. We also had a race car game and followed the lines using our cars. I guess everybody
won because we all had fun from start to finish.
What could be more fun than exploring shapes and colors outdoors? We had a nature walk
to discover different colors in our surroundings. We even had a scavenger hunt to make it
more exciting. We were running through the filed to pick up pieces of fallen leaves, twigs
and other materials. We were also able to sort them correctly based on their color. After
learning about colors, we also had an inquiry about shapes. We discovered that we could
layer circles on top of our squares to make concentric circles. After we laid out our squares
and circles, we arranged and glued the circles down on the square paper. After everything
was glued, we shared our art with our friends and talked about the colors.
We had a wonderful time with our special visitors, Ms. Lucy and Ms. Miki. They showed us
how to make Christmas Suncatchers and Scratch art. First, we made the Christmas
Suncatchers by cutting or tearing the cellophane papers into smaller pieces. Next, we placed
the frame down onto the contact paper and filled it with cellophane papers. It was
awesome! Our second activity was the scratch art. We colored our entire sheet using
different crayons, then we applied a layer of black paint onto our work. Then we prepared a
scratching tool to create lines, patterns and figures. Thank you Ms. Lucy and Ms. Mikki for
making our Christmas Crafts extra colorful and special. We had so much fun!
Writing was fun because we were able to build and rainbow-write our names. We also had a
number of games to help us recognize letters and know more about its sound. We played a
game of "Dig in the Pasta Bowl" to learn all about the letter Pp and its sound. We must fish
out and name the pictures (panda, peas, pencil, paint, and parrot) from the pasta bowl.
Afterward, we made a letter Pp using pompoms and paint.
We continue to explore number formation and recognition through arts. We used foil,
cotton, foam, corrugated boards, plastic strips, and pebbles to create our numbers. We
remember to start from the top when applying glue/sticking art materials. Aside from art,
we also use number poems to help us visualize and remember number formation.