This week we explored beading with some hand dyed past and pipe cleaners. I encouraged students to get sculptural using a piece of peg board along with their beaded pasta wires. For most of the students this was their first time ever beading and they enjoyed practicing their fine motor skill control and hand eye coordination.
I gave children 2.5 and up smaller pasta beads along with the larger ones and encouraged them to step up to the challenge.
This proved to be a great collaborative project for caregiver and child as the younger ones definitely needed help along the way.
Some children wanted to add paint and glitter. The finished projects were stunning!
Because the weather service was forecasting heavy rain every day this week I made a last minute batch of flubber.
There is really nothing like the feel, movement, and mold-ability of flubber. It’s a unique creature that dazzles both parent and child.
Some students enjoyed breaking the flubber up into small pieces with their hands or a knife (soft and toddler safe of course!). While others enjoeyed practicing with scissors or pushing in glass beads and necklace pieces.
One cool experiment we did with this slow moving liquid is to place it in a strainer/colander for 10 minutes. Sure enough it started oozing out of the holes.
I practiced flowing with the wind in several classes and let the children choose their secondary activity to the bead work. For many this included painting in some way, shape or form.
The rollers really encourage full body paint movement.
While the wall is always regarded as collaborative space, the easel offers students a chance at some private art making.
I played around with putting paper up across the plexi-glass and it definitely encouraged a larger unified painting vs. the segregated imagery that usually occurs naturally because of the lines between each plexiglass slab.
For my Friday morning class I pulled back out some clay as many of these students were absent last week. They loved exploring this endless medium with water, paint, and a variety of tools.
