Tall Tales and Art- Alphabet City

Today, I actually used 2 books with the students. I started out by showing them the wordless picture book Alphabet City by Stephen T. Johnson.We went through the book and talked about the different letters and where they were found in the city. The smallest children got excited when we got to their initial ("T... That's my letter!).

Then I read them the old classic, Dr. Seuss's ABC.They loved the silly rhymes and had fun yelling out words that started with each letter of the alphabet.

The 3-5 year olds created blinged out letters. I had large letters on hand that the students traced onto a piece of paper. Then we gave them: markers, crayons, foam shapes, colored pasta (food coloring and rubbing alcohol), GLITTER, scissors, glue, tissue paper, etc. This was very open-ended and many of them enjoyed it so much that they created 3 or 4 letters each.

The 6-8 year olds used die cut letters (I found mine at Dollar Tree in their teacher section) to trace onto a piece of paper. They overlapped their letters and then used markers, crayons, glitter, pipe cleaners, tissue paper, etc to decorate them. This was quite time consuming, and it was so quiet when I walked into the room where they were working. They were all so focused on coloring in their letters!

The oldest group of students created a 3D letter (3D Letters). We started out by tracing a letter onto a piece of posterboard 2 times. They cut the letters out and then glued 10 dixie cups (the little ones that you buy for your bathroom) onto on of the letters. After applying glue to the tops of the dixie cups, they placed the second letter on top.

From there, I had a variety of materials on hand for them to decorate their letters: wrapping paper, scrapbook paper, sequins, beads, glitter, markers, crayons. They got quite creative! This was quite time consuming and many ended up having to take them home to finish them.

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Tall Tales and Art- Only One You

 Today's book was Only One You by Linda Kranz. I have always wanted to work with this book and I finally got the chance.

I read the book to the children and as we always do, we broke into age groups.

The younger students (ages 3-5) created a watercolor fish. The inspiration for this activity came from: There's A Dragon in my Art Room.

They started by drawing their fish on white paper and tracing it with black marker. Then they used liquid watercolors (many of them had never used these before and they LOVED the vibrant colors that they were able to use for their fish).

They cut out their fish and glued them onto a background. We had some turquoise paper which worked nicely for an underwater scene. Then came the decorating. Glitter, foam shapes, tissue paper, sequins and GLUE were all made available to the children for their fish.

The next age group (6-8 yrs old) created Gyotaku fish prints. The inspiration for this activity came from That Artist Woman.

 They painted the fish (we did not use real fish for this, but I have heard that you can... we bought the rubber fish for this activity) with acrylic paint. The students then created 1 print on a piece of paper. This pulled most of the paint off of the fish. Then they used a piece of muslin to create a second print, pulling the rest of the paint off of the fish.

The last group of students (ages 9 and up), painted river rocks. I bought river rocks at Home Depot. The children were able to choose the rock that "spoke" to them. Some looked for a certain shape, others looked for certain coloring. It was interesting to see how they searched for their particular rocks. They used acrylic paint and created their own individual rocks. Since I had made sure to have plenty of rocks on hand, some children went home with 5-6 painted rocks.

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Tall Tales and Art Summer Program returns!

We were unable to hold our summer program last year due to building renovations. But we are back this year! 

We had our first class today, with the book A Color of His Own by Leo Lionni. 

After reading the book to our group of children (ranging in age from 3 up to middle school), we broke into 3 groups.

The first group (ages 3-5) made a paper plate chameleon. Having learned from previous years, the little ones want glue and sparkles!!! So that's what we gave them.... in addition to crayons, markers and colored pencils.

The idea for this activity came from the following website: http://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/mplate-chameleon.htm

I did not give them templates, however. The children drew their own features and cut them out.

















The next group (ages 6-8) made Model Magic chameleons. They were given red, yellow, blue and white Model Magic and from that were able to make their chameleons any color they wanted. Some even branched out and created entire landscapes!

The idea for this activity came from: http://www.artprojectsforkids.org/2013/04/model-magic-chameleon.html

The older students (9 and up) made chameleons out of pipe cleaners. I found the steps for these at: http://www.linesacross.com/2011/08/chameleon-pipe-cleaner-animal-color-of.html

Some of the older students got really creative with the pipe cleaners. We had families of chameleons, ponds made out of pipe cleaners, birds, etc.

Our next class will be Only One You by Linda Kranz. Stay tuned for our next round of activities!

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