Something from Nothing

This week in PreK Art Lunch, we read one of my favorite books, "Joseph Had a Little Overcoat," about a man who had an overcoat that got old and worn. So he turned it into a jacket. When the jacket got old and worn he turned it into a vest. When the vest got old and worn he turned it into a scarf and so on and so on. The book is neat because there are cutouts throughout, showing the cloth getting smaller and smaller, until all that's left is a little button. At the very end, Joseph loses the button, so he is left with nothing. So what does he do? He writes a book about it and shows how you can make something out of nothing.

The other book we read was based on The Emperor's New Clothes, which in its own way, is about making something out of nothing—or is it about making nothing out of something? Either way, we made little people, complete with clothes made of actual cloth and buttons for accents.

Lunch with Mr. Pine

Mr. Pine's Purple House was one of my favorite books when I was little. When I had kids of my own, I put it on hold at the library and was happy to find it was as cute as I remembered. When I started teaching this class, I thought Mr. Pine's Purple House would be a perfect book to share.

First we talked about our own homes and what colors the buildings are where we live. Nobody in the group had ever seen a purple house.

The book is about Mr. Pine, who lives on Vine Street, where there are 50 white houses, all in a line. How can Mr. Pine tell which house is his? First, he plants a pine tree in his front yard. All of his neighbors love it, and they all copy him. So now there are 50 white houses with 50 pine trees. So he plants a bush. You guessed it...all of his neighbors do the same.

Finally, Mr. Pine decides to paint his house—purple. When his neighbors, who happen to have last names of "Green," "Gray" and "Gold" decide to paint their houses, he shouts, "NO! Not 50 purple houses all in a line." But they decide to paint their houses all different colors (which do not coincide with their last names, a little twist I find amusing).

For our project, the children created their own unique houses. If they were to see it on the street, they would surely know it was where they lived.

Welcome to Daliwood

This week we were under the influence of Salvador Dali. After looking at some of his work and discussing surrealism and its dreamlike qualities, the kids were able to pick from a table full of magazine pictures I had previously cut out.

They were to arrange them on their page however they liked, and I encouraged them to draw a background to better illustrate where these objects were—whether they belonged there or not!

If I Could Talk to the Animals...

....I'd love to talk to the ones created in art class last week! We learned about Henri Rousseau. We looked at some of his tiger pictures, monkeys and apes. Most of them were in the jungle. The students were asked to chose an animal and place it in an environment. I wanted them to try to show some objects in front and some behind the animal to show its position in its surroundings.

All of the kids worked hard, and I was very impressed with the outcomes. This was the first time I've lead this project, and at the end of the hour, some of the kids were already discussing which animal they'll do the next time they take my class....I guess it's a keeper!

PreK Draws Monsters

It was Monster Week in PreK Art. We read "Jeremy Draws a Monster," "Leonardo the Terrible Monster" and "Where the Wild Things Are"—all three great books.

Then, just like Jeremy did, Beatrice, Teo, Kaylee, Jimmy and Maggie drew their own monsters. Most of them chose to create nice monsters, like Leonardo turned out to be at the end of the book.