I love LOVE! I’m all about reclaiming holidays, expanding upon the hallmark understanding, tapping into the potential of celebration….especially when it comes to love.
Before we dove into endless pink, red, white, and purple Valentine’s Day supplies I introduced the theme for the day by reading “Mouse’s First Valentine”. Lauren Thompon and Buket Erdogan have a great series of books that focus on Mouse’s first experience with holidays and seasons. They are rich with color and symbolism, but not over done.
Materials on the table:
- construction paper (red, three shades of pink and white)
- ribbon
- foam stickers
- glitter heart shapes
- paper shapes made from recycled art with paper punches
- glitter
- doilys
- stickers
- washi tape
- paint chip strips
Tools:
- scissors
- glue sticks
- white glue
Glitter is one of the hardest materials to contain, but to minimize it traveling around the studio and house I set up a small table in the corner where we sprinkle glitter to our hearts content and then recycle as much as possible back into plastic salt and pepper shakers.
With my open-ended projects I encourage adults to sit back and let the students gravitate towards whatever supply speaks to them. It’s our job to support execution and if necessary give a few ideas for inspiration if a child is slow to get started. Once kids are on a roll I find they happily immerse themselves in the supplies and create without hesitation.
The best thing about not showing examples is that everything comes our incredibly unique. It’s amazing to see what see their artistic voice already developing.
