Bubble-Wrap Printing + Shapes = A Lambie Art-Fest!

OMGoodness I just love these finished pieces! Even though this art activity was all about process, I am floored by how beautiful and different each of the lambies final pieces came out!  I would be into framing and hanging up each and every one of these lovelies in my home - they are so cheerful and fun to look at!

Toddlers Wuv Twains!

A while back (I am in the process of catching up on my posts), the Lambies were learning about trains and spending lots of time playing trains during play time. Mrs. Alma asked me if I could plan an art lesson around trains and so I started by reading this book to the lambies:

Our local library had this book in the oversized version which is always really fun for the little ones. While we read the book together we talked about the shapes of the train cars and the wheels.

Lambies "Plant" Mini-Gardens

Spring is in high gear this week at the Lambies, so I decided to provide the materials for them to plant their own personal mini-gardens!

Spring Has Sprung at the Lambies

Can you all believe it's April already? The lambies have been busy planting flowers and learning about how plants grow. Today we read Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert.

Pink + Hearts = Valentine's Day Art with the Lambies!

Our Lambie V-Day project was a big hit this year! The children got to paint on wood boards, mix red and white paints to make different kinds of pinks, glue on positive and negative space paper hearts, take a photo with colorful flowers, add tissue paper circles, frame their faces with pink yarn, and add details with gold tempera paint. They had a blast using all these materials and exploring their little hearts out!

Lambies Show Their Thanks with Gratitude Boxes

I wanted to do a project for Thanksgiving but wasn't up for incorporating the traditional food approach this year. There's just something morbid about making turkeys that are eventually oven-bound as a way of celebrating in art class. So after doing a little research and looking in my stash of supplies I decided to have the lambies create "gratitude boxes".

For this lesson, we started out by sitting together in a circle and taking turns saying what we are thankful for. The lambies had so much to say that we went around the circle twice - I love them so much!

Music is in the Air! The Lambies Make Instruments

November was "music month" at the Lambies. I found two great instrument projects online that I was inspired by and decided to do with the lambies. The first one was jingle bell sticks:

Triangles Galore!

Triangles are our shape this month, so I supplied the lambies with triangles in a variety of paper types, sizes, and colors. We had tissue paper triangles, construction paper triangles, and tag board triangles. I sorted them into color families (pink/purple/red, red/orange/yellow, blue/green) and paired them with one color of paint and some white glue. The lambies know what to do by now - they just go for it!

October is Orange

So our colors for this month of October are orange and black, and our shape is the triangle. For the first art class I decided to focus on "orange", and so I made orange-scented, orange-colored homemade playdough for the lambies. I made little oranges out of the dough and added leaves from my orange tree and put them on a pretty serving plate to inspire them, along with a variety of orange colored "tools" for them to use.

Holy Shades of Red Batman, These Paintings Are Stunning!

Okay, seriously? I don't think I could make a better artwork than this one if I tried. This was made by a 4-year-old! I can't even stand how beautiful it and all of the other paintings the lambies made this morning are!

Focus on Red

So focused, I love it!

  

Well, another school year has started and I had my first preschool art class of the year this morning. This month's focus at the "lambies" is the color red and circles - a fact that just happen to be a coincidence when planning my process art activity for today - a happy coincidence, that is!

Rainbows! (Who Doesn't Love 'Em?)

Really, who doesn't love rainbows? I've taught kids of all ages and they always love rainbows (and unicorns?)!

Gigantic, Beautiful, Messy Pastel Flowers!

So before the huge rainy season this year we had our rainforest mural up in the backyard at the lambies. I just had to have them add big beautiful and colorful flowers to this beauty!

Playdoh "Scent-sory" Play Day

Okay, so I'm way behind on my posting these days - what with this thing, that thing, and the other thing getting in the way - but here I am now ready to play some catch up.

This past fall I wanted to explore "scent" sensory play so I created three different smelling homemade playdohs, in three colors. Using organic essential oils mixed in with an all natural playdoh recipe, I made Green Mint, Orangey Orange, and Lemon Yellow doughs. And of course, you can't forget about the glitter!

Process Paintings are Beautiful!

Once again I am humbled by the exploratory and adventurous art-making attitudes of the lambies. This week I wanted to give them another chance just to play with color and different painting tools.

Little Blue + Little Yellow

A few weeks ago (I'm very behind on my blogging!) I brought the book Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni. If you don't know the story, it is about a little blue blob and a little yellow blob that are BFFs and when they hug each other they turn green!

Autumn Soup Sensory Play Day, Yay!

In my research on what to do with the lambies a couple of weeks ago I came across this post from And Next Comes L. She created a sensory play bin with these acrylic leaves on Amazon.

The Lambies Paint Jack-O-Lanterns, Lambie-Style

What a super-fun Halloween we had on all counts this year! At the Lambies we had lots of process-art fun making free-form jack-o-lanterns. 

Lambs Love Snakes?!

Who knew that the lambies would love to decorate snakes? Not me! I wanted to add to our rainforest themed mural, the current state of which is this: (which by the way really brightens up that brick wall!)

Fun & Sparkly Flowers

My plan was to have the lambies make flowers for our rainforest mural, but after they spent so much time making these sparkly beauties they asked me if they were going to be able to take these home… How could I say no? Of course they became attached to these lovelies so I had to let them enjoy their sparkly goodness on their own turf.