NYC affords me the chance to teach my kids about the many museums we have here and to study a few of the famous artists that have artwork in them. This theme derived from our NYC theme and grew into a 2 week theme as well.
We focused on the MoMA and The Met and studied artists whose artwork is easily identifiable for 2-3 year olds and artists who I have an interest in (if I didn’t I would definitely be bored).
We started off with Van Gogh. We studied a few of his paintings: Sunflowers, The Bedroom and of course Starry Night. I used several books with this part of the unit (and of course throughout): Van Gogh’s Colors, by Vincent Van Gogh, Make Van Gogh’s Bed, by Julie Appel (my kids love this book because its interactive and is not solely about Van Gogh), and The Starry Night, by Neil Waldman (mostly used as just a reference book to look at the different pictures). Starry Night is the painting we focused and did our activity on. For our activity I created the base for their picture: dark blue construction paper, different colored houses to emulate the town and a black construction paper structure. I mixed yellow and white paint (separately) with cornstarch to give it a thicker appearance and gave each of my kids 2 Q-tips. I like to give my kids free reign of their artwork so what they did after that was of their own doing. It was breathtaking! My kids surprise me often with the work they create and this was no exception. They took their time and painted the stars in the sky and did it beautifully.
Another of my favorite artists is Monet. We studied the paintings of water lilies but focused on the Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies. This was also the inspiration for our activity. We read and talked about The Magical Garden of Claude Monet, by Laurence Anholt. This book helped them associate Monet with an older man with a white beard (and that is exactly how they remember him)! I knew I wanted the kids to make their own Bridge painting but I was at a loss for how. So I did what I think most of us do when we are at a loss, I searched online and found images of people who had used tape to create a bridge image and then peeled the tape off when it was dry. So I thought this looks promising and gave it a go. After a long search for a material thick enough to withstand a lot of paint but cheaper than canvas, Lee’s Art Shop in Midtown proved to be my savior when I found random sized boards (really thick poster board is the only way I can think to describe it) for very cheap AND they were willing to cut them to the size I wanted (and they give teachers a 20% discount! Thanks Lee’s!). The next day I painstakingly ripped and cut masking tape to the various sizes and made 14 little bridges, I was so excited! At project time the kids painted the whole board (about 6x8) green with a sponge brush and then were given Q-tips to apply pink and purple for the water lilies. We let them dry and by the afternoon a few of them were ready to have the tape taken off (the kids were just as excited as me)! We all watched transfixed as our paintings came to life and we were in Monet’s Garden!
After Monet we turned to Jackson Pollock and studied what we refer to as splatter painting. The kids had a blast with this one! We took this project outside, gave the kids watered down primary colored tempera paint and showed them they are not actually painting they are standing about their paper and flicking the color on. This took a little while to get but the resulting pictures were awesome!
We went on to study a bit about Picasso. The activity we did were photographic self portraits. I had used this before with one of my other classes and loved how it came out, so I decided to do it again. I took a close up picture of each child’s face and had the pictures printed. Then I cut the pictures up in various sizes and shapes. Each child’s picture was put back together for them to see before they moved all the pieces and got to work. The only instruction I gave to them was that they were now to glue all the pieces on their paper. Only one of my kids put his face back together completely, the others did it however they wanted, and I think it resulted in very Picasso-esque type pictures!
We did a quick study of Matisse and his later years of working with bright, bold colors on collage. This project turned out better than I expected! I gave each child a piece of black construction paper and gave everyone precut shapes (any shape seemed to work) and told them to add some glue and make their picture however they wanted (extra shapes were available and were most definitely utilized). The effect of the colors on the black was awesome and looked really good when we hung them up!
Piet Mondrian was a new artist that I hadn’t really done anything before but love his style and figured we could try it out. I read a book called Mousterpiece, by Jane Breskin Zalben to my kids that introduced Mondrian (as well as other artists we were studying and talking about). This book is great and I highly recommend it to anyone studying artists, my kids were enthralled every time we read it and were so proud when they could pick out artists we had talked about. Similarly to the way we did the bridge, I taped up small pieces of thick board. This time I only wanted primary colors (as that is what his style is known for), which proved a bit hard for some kids (they wanted to mix the colors). I chose not to make the black lines like Mondrian did because I knew the kids would paint every available space to them and didn’t want it to look too cluttered. Again, I was awestruck as we peeled the tape off to reveal their masterpieces!
(I apologize for the quality of this picture)
In addition to these activities we also had easel painting available and a collage making table all week. The kids had a blast discovering the different ways to create art! And then we displayed everything like a museum for their parents to look at!
Another of my favorite artists is Monet. We studied the paintings of water lilies but focused on the Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies. This was also the inspiration for our activity. We read and talked about The Magical Garden of Claude Monet, by Laurence Anholt. This book helped them associate Monet with an older man with a white beard (and that is exactly how they remember him)! I knew I wanted the kids to make their own Bridge painting but I was at a loss for how. So I did what I think most of us do when we are at a loss, I searched online and found images of people who had used tape to create a bridge image and then peeled the tape off when it was dry. So I thought this looks promising and gave it a go. After a long search for a material thick enough to withstand a lot of paint but cheaper than canvas, Lee’s Art Shop in Midtown proved to be my savior when I found random sized boards (really thick poster board is the only way I can think to describe it) for very cheap AND they were willing to cut them to the size I wanted (and they give teachers a 20% discount! Thanks Lee’s!). The next day I painstakingly ripped and cut masking tape to the various sizes and made 14 little bridges, I was so excited! At project time the kids painted the whole board (about 6x8) green with a sponge brush and then were given Q-tips to apply pink and purple for the water lilies. We let them dry and by the afternoon a few of them were ready to have the tape taken off (the kids were just as excited as me)! We all watched transfixed as our paintings came to life and we were in Monet’s Garden!
After Monet we turned to Jackson Pollock and studied what we refer to as splatter painting. The kids had a blast with this one! We took this project outside, gave the kids watered down primary colored tempera paint and showed them they are not actually painting they are standing about their paper and flicking the color on. This took a little while to get but the resulting pictures were awesome!
We went on to study a bit about Picasso. The activity we did were photographic self portraits. I had used this before with one of my other classes and loved how it came out, so I decided to do it again. I took a close up picture of each child’s face and had the pictures printed. Then I cut the pictures up in various sizes and shapes. Each child’s picture was put back together for them to see before they moved all the pieces and got to work. The only instruction I gave to them was that they were now to glue all the pieces on their paper. Only one of my kids put his face back together completely, the others did it however they wanted, and I think it resulted in very Picasso-esque type pictures!
We did a quick study of Matisse and his later years of working with bright, bold colors on collage. This project turned out better than I expected! I gave each child a piece of black construction paper and gave everyone precut shapes (any shape seemed to work) and told them to add some glue and make their picture however they wanted (extra shapes were available and were most definitely utilized). The effect of the colors on the black was awesome and looked really good when we hung them up!
Piet Mondrian was a new artist that I hadn’t really done anything before but love his style and figured we could try it out. I read a book called Mousterpiece, by Jane Breskin Zalben to my kids that introduced Mondrian (as well as other artists we were studying and talking about). This book is great and I highly recommend it to anyone studying artists, my kids were enthralled every time we read it and were so proud when they could pick out artists we had talked about. Similarly to the way we did the bridge, I taped up small pieces of thick board. This time I only wanted primary colors (as that is what his style is known for), which proved a bit hard for some kids (they wanted to mix the colors). I chose not to make the black lines like Mondrian did because I knew the kids would paint every available space to them and didn’t want it to look too cluttered. Again, I was awestruck as we peeled the tape off to reveal their masterpieces!
(I apologize for the quality of this picture)
In addition to these activities we also had easel painting available and a collage making table all week. The kids had a blast discovering the different ways to create art! And then we displayed everything like a museum for their parents to look at!
