Sunday, November 30, 2008

Thanksgiving

I feel so bad that I didn't get on this sooner. My time really has not been my own for a little while now. Things are coming back together, but I have to apologize for sending home a half finished project, and not sending further instructions. I thought I had planned enough time, but obviously that didn't work out so well. We had fun on Tuesday, and I have missed my kids! I'll be excited to see everyone on Tuesday, and have a full week. I'll send Calendars home then. I'm looking forward to December, I've got lots of great stuff planned, and of course our Winter Showcase on the last preschool day of the month. I hope everyone had a nice holiday and thank you for sharing your cute kids with me.

Celebration Day!

We are so lucky that we got to celebrate this great kid! He is such a joy to have around, and loved by everyone. We learned about him today that he would love to be a shark. He actually "has??" a pet shark that is a baby, and it won't eat his sister! What a nice shark. He is a super speedy runner, and probably runs faster than anyone else! He is always smiling, and I could just snack on his dimples. He so reminds me of my nephew Luke. We love having this fabulous guy here at the Studio!

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Ss John Singer Sargent

Today we talked about John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) and his association with impressionism. We talked about how impressionism looks in art, and then we did our own impressionist painting.
We used sponges to paint with and blend colors, and I love the results we got. You'll have to wait for the winter showcase to see their work, but here they are in action.





Thursday, November 13, 2008

Celebration Day!

Today we got to celebrate this little cutie. We learned that for this darling girl, fun, fun and more fun is what life is about. She is amazing merely because she chooses to be so. She loves to have fun and only wishes that she could have more of it. She loves her family, especially her parents, and we love her! We're so lucky to have her in preschool.

Pp Pirate and Princess Puppets


Today, we made puppets, not just any puppets, pirate and princess puppets. We continued our discussion about Picasso, and his daring to do something different from the rest of the art community. We talked about doing what is right even if makes you unpopular, and we talked about everyone having something worthwhile to say. So after we made our puppets, each child came up and told us what was important for them to say at this moment. This is what we heard:
- Be kind and be nice.
- Love one another.
- Thank you.
- The star wars fight was robots!
- Don't fight.
- Be kind.
- Aaaaaaargh!!! Matey!!
- Please.
- Thank you and be kind.
- Thank you for giving me my food.
- I want someone to play with me.
- Thank you.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Pp Pablo Picasso and Peter Perfectly Polite

We had a great day with the letter Pp. We could do Pp for weeks, there is so much to do. We had a "visit" today from Peter and Polly perfectly polite, and also from Patty-pretty-much-not-polite. We did various role plays of how we should act to be polite. One of the things we discussed was looking people in the eye when we speak to them. We were pretending we went to work with our dad, and he introduced us to someone who asked our name. The little guy that I had role playing with me looked me right in the eyes, and with all of the confidence in the world said (and very politely I might add) "My name is Batman!"

We also learned a little bit about Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). Although not renown for being terribly polite, he changed art forever by being himself, and believing strongly in something. We made our own Pablo Picasso portraits that will be displayed at our winter showcase in December. Top that day off with preschool-made pepperoni pizza, and we had a marvelous day!

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Pp Pointillism

Today we talked about Pointillism, a method in art where paintings are created using little dots of color, and when you stand back, your eye blends the colors and an image is formed.
So we did our own paintings using Pointillism as our method. We got some great pieces back, which you will be able to view at the winter showcase in December. I asked one little artist to tell me about his work and he said "Well, this is a Venus Fly Trap, and this is the blue blood, and this is the yellow blood, and this is the red blood . . ." hee hee hee. How very creative. It was fun to see how some of the kids were pretty serious about their work. They all did a great job.


Thursday, November 6, 2008

Celebration Day!


It's all about sea horses with this darling little girl. She loves sea horses, she wants to be a sea horse, she wishes she was blue like a sea horse, and on and on. The thing that makes her so amazing is that she can eat soooooooo fast! She loves to play and doesn't like it when people cry. We are so happy to have her wonderful presence in preschool.

Ii Impasto



We had such a fun week with the letter Ii. On Tuesday we mixed up some of our version of impasto. Impasto is a paint technique where the paint is applied to the surface really heavily to create texture. Instead of heavy paint, we made a paste, and applied it to a heavy paper and let it dry for a few days. Today, we painted our dry textured pieces in bright tempra. We are going to show the works at our winter showcase, so get all sorts of excited.