The arts motivate and engage children in learning, stimulate memory and facilitate understanding, enhance symbolic communication, promote relationships, and provide an avenue for building competence. – Young Children and the Arts: Making Creative Connections, The Task Force on Children’s Learning and the Arts, 1998 We are playfully following the journey of very hungry caterpillars as they…
Kindergarten Art
Caterpillars and butterflies
I believe most children can identify with the helpless, small, insignificant caterpillar, and they rejoice with it when it turns into a beautiful butterfly. It is an affirmation to all children. It says: I too can grow up. I too can unfold my wings and fly into the world. – Eric Carle Young children learn…
Mixed Media Calendars
Create postcard-sized Mixed Media paintings, get inspired by the seasons, have an epic, two day collage craft party like we did or collect your children’s mini creations throughout the year to make a calendar! This is my absolute favorite, toddler approved project to experiment with first layering techniques and Mixed Media! Materials Sharpies Oil pastels…
Snowflake Mixed Media Collage
Snowflakes are one of nature’s most fragile things, but just look at what they can do when they stick together. – Vesta M. Kelly Are you looking for a fun way to recycle your left-over tissue paper snowflakes? We took our window decorations down and glued the snowflakes onto paper which turned out to be…
Christmas Potato Prints
Potato Printing is one of the most simple, open-ended and playful printing techniques perfect for little hands. You can make anything from Christmas stockings, wrapping paper or wall hangings with this fun printing activity. Materials Small potatoes and a knife Packing paper and cardboard Tempera paint Tray or paper plate Scissors Tissue paper Glue stick…
Print your own Christmas Stockings
One can never have enough socks. – J.K. Rowling Are you still looking for a meaningful Christmas activity for you and your family? How about making your own stockings? This is easy to set up and leaves more than enough open-ended possibilities to create and experiment with fun printing techniques. Materials: Stockings (or you can sew…
Salt Dough Ornaments
Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas. ― Peg Bracken Salt Dough Ornaments make adorable little gifts! Younger children will enjoy manipulating the dough and relish the sensory feedback they are getting, especially from their tactile sense! Squishing, rolling and cutting the dough are fun activities by…
Thanksgiving Canvas Banner
Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. – William Arthur Ward For Thanksgiving we focused on themes of sharing and caring, community and compassion for each other. We practiced saying ‘thank you’, discussed how we can make each other feel good, tried to remember who helped us with…
Celebrating Thanksgiving
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It can turn a meal into a fest, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. – Malody Beattie One of my favorite memories is the artful Thanksgiving Feast at our preschool – a perfect time to nurture a…
Pumpkin Decorating
Are you still looking for a fun and easy, age appropriate, no-carve pumpkin decorating idea that will keep your toddler busy for hours? Look no further! Ever since seeing Meri Cherry’s Pumpkin Party, decorating pumpkins with tinker trays has become a yearly tradition – we seriously love these pumpkins sooo much! Before decorating pumpkins you…
