picture day

I think these kids are so awesome. I really love my job a lot.

Celebration Day!

Today we got to celebrate this adorable child! We learned that all things pink are wonderful and beautiful, and if she could be a pink flamingo, that would take the cake! She loves her mama so much! She loves to read with her and help her every day. She would love to visit Disneyland, and probably knows more games than anyone! We are so happy to have this wonderful girl at our Studio.

Here is one of the Celebration Day portraits of our Celebration Day Girl!

Celebration Day!

Today we got to celebrate this fabulous guy! He loves his cousin, and the color purple, and he has really special clothes! Lucky! He would love to be a tiger in the jungle, because it would be soooo cool to do that. He's a pretty amazing dancer and jumper on the trampoline. He is such a nice guy, and we love hanging out with him every week at The Studio.One of our amazing student portraits of our celebration day student. Notice the perfectly spiky hair.

Pp Pirate and Princess Puppets

I love this day and these puppets. They were fun to make, and I love hearing the stuff that comes out of the kids' mouths in the name of their puppets. So, one side of the puppet is a pirate and the other side is a princess, and as per the story, we also made a pink and purple parrot puppet on a stick. One little guy said to me as I was giving them instructions:
"There is no way I'm going to draw a princess on anything! I don't care about the story, I'm making two pirates and there's no way I'm coloring my parrot pink!"
So, the project wasn't for everyone apparently, but it was way fun!

Pp perfectly cool letter

I love this week in school! There are so many awesome projects to do with the letter Pp. We started off the week talking about an impressionist method of painting called Pointillism in which the paint is applied to the surface in small dots of color that are joined together by the eye to create the image as a whole.

George Seurat (1859-1891)

We experimented with Pointillism and the kids made some great pieces.

I was going to use them in the art show, but the show is getting a bit too large, and so I sent them home the next day.
Next up for the letter Pp was of course Pablo Picasso(1881-1973).

We looked at a few pieces of his work, and then set out to make our own Picasso-esque portraits. They turned out so awesome!

Celebration Day!

Today we got to celebrate this darling little girl. We learned about her that she LOVES her sister! She also loves her friends and the color yellow. She would like to be a giraffe so that she could have a long neck (wouldn't we all?). She is very obedient and rather amazing on the trampoline. She is moving away and won't be in school anymore after this month. We're sure going to miss her! We have all very much enjoyed spending time with her at The Studio.

Here is one of the fantastic student portraits of our celebration girl.
I had a little help with this photo.

Ii Impasto and Indian Corn

We had a fun week with the letter Ii. We talked about Impasto. This was a super fun day! The kids think it's so fun to make gunk, and stick it down.

Our finished Impasto pieces promise to impress. They will be shown at our Winter Showcase.
We also learned a little bit about Indian Corn, and made our own. The hardest part about this project was making sure the kids didn't eat too many of the marshmallows before they could finish their projects.

It was a fun week with the letter Ii.

Overheard

These kids say the best stuff. I laugh quite a bit each day. Here are a couple-

We had show and tell, and one boy brought in an NYPD play set. This cute little guy said in the gruffest voice a 4 year old can conjure up-
"That's cool, but I wouldn't play with it. I only play with manly toys."

I asked the kids how trick or treating went for them and one little girl said-
"I just got tons of money from people, so today we're going shopping and I guess I'll be able to buy whatever I want because now I have tons of money!"

I need to start trick or treating over there!

Cc Alexander Calder

For the letter Cc we talked about Alexander Calder (1898-1976). Calder is known best for the mobiles he created. It is said that he is the inventor of the mobile as art.
We made our own Halloween mobiles using our hands and feet to create some great spooky subjects for our mobiles.

We also worked on collages on canvas, and talked about color and creativity. So much wonderfulness with the letter Cc.

Halloween Week

We had a fun week doing Halloween projects. We made clowns with cotton candy, spooky spiders and a few other fun projects.

We ended the week with a costume party, popcorn, and games. It was a fun week!

Xx AleX Darais, EXprssionist painter

Alex Darais

For the letter Xx, we looked at the Expressionist style of Utah artist Alex Basil Darais (1918-2007). We talked about Expressionism and how some of the elements of thesubject are there, they are just depicted in your own way.

Self Portrait

We looked at the tree in this particular piece, and proceeded to paint our own Alex Darais Expressionistic fall tree.

Overheard

#1 Your just jealous! (Clearly not understanding what jealous even means)

#2 (Also not understanding the word) No I'm not!

#1 Yes you are! Girls are always jealous!

#2 If girls were always jealous, then --- and ---- would be jealous, and they're not!

#1 Yes they are, cause' girls are always jealous! Even when they're not jealous, they're jealous.

#2 Well, I'm not jealous!

#1 (under his breath) Uh, ya you are.

Celebration Day!

Today we got to celebrate this darling little girl! The best part about being her is that she gets her nails painted. She loves the color blue, strawberries and her cousin. She would love to be a baby pig so that she could be sooooo small. She can do back bends better than anyone else, and she is so amazing because she gets to go to gymnastics. We are lucky to have her as a friend, and love spending time with her at The Studio.

Portrait of our Celebration Day Girl!

Nn noodles, nests, noses, and Emil Nolde

We did so much this week with the letter Nn. First we dyed noodles (and our fingers) with alcohol and food coloring. We got some great colors!

We talked a lot this week about natural art, art found in nature. We looked at nests and their symmetry and the beautiful colors that can be found in eggs. Then we made our own nests, complete with eggs. I am told that a few of those eggs actually hatched. Way to go guys!

We also talked about a German artist named Emil Nolde (1867-1956). He was told by Hitler that he couldn't paint, draw, or create any art whatsoever, by penalty of death. The art was inside of him though, and he saw "pure color and shape in nature all around him" and he had to paint it.

Emil Nolde

We made our version of pure shape and color from a photograph of nature. Those pieces are being saved for the art show.




We had a great week with the letter Nn.

Fabulous letter F

We had a fantastic week with the letter F! We made some fun fish aquariums, we tye-dyed fabric and turned them into pumpkin pillows. We talked about the super-fancy (rococco) painting style of Jean-Honore Fragonard (1732-1806).

The Swing

We then finger-painted our own fancy version of fish with glitter paint! Top that off with fishies, fruit snacks, and french fries for snacks, it was a great week.

Overheard

I hear the funniest stuff sometimes. I need to write them down so that I can blog the cute stuff that comes out of these little mouths. I always think I'll remember, and I never do. This one I jotted down. These two cute kids were talking about their last year preschool experiences.
(I might note that neither child was in my preschool last year.)

#1 Well, my teacher was mad at me EVERY DAY!!
#2 MY teacher was mad at me every day AND I got suspended even!
#1 Well, I was in time out and that is even badder.
#2 Nuh, uh, suspended is badder because my mom and dad got so mad at me, and I went in time out all the time at preschool, and they didn't get mad at me for that.

(Satisfied that kicked out probably was badder, the conversation went on to the teachers.)

#1 Well my teacher was so mad all the time.
#2 My teacher was mad too, at everyone, not just me.
#1 My teacher was mad AND mean.

............................................ and so it goes. Don't even ask, I won't tell you. he he he he he

Celebration Day!

Today we got to celebrate this great little guy. We learned that his skills as a back flipper, and back-hand-springer are un-paralleled! He loves being on the go, his big brother, swimming, and shockingly, he wishes more than anything thing that there was a giant snake in his back yard! We are loving getting to know this cute little boy.

I loved this portrait of our celebrated little man.
Notice the spiky hai

Mm Matisse

Today we talked about the fabulous Henri Matisse (1869-1954). We looked specifically at his piece entitled The Snail. This enormous piece was completed just before his death, and remains one of his most famous. It is made with cut and torn pieces of dyed paper that were adhered to the canvas.
We cut and tore our own paper and made our own little Snails. I LOVED so much the results that we got in this project.

Mm Monster Mobile

Today we made these way awesome Monster Mobiles. They are as frustrating as they are cute. I heard no less than 100 times today "Teacher, my leg (arm, hair, head . . .) fell off AGAIN!!"

Tt Wayne Theibaud

Today we discussed Wayne Theibaud (b. 1920-). He is probably one of my favorite modern artists. Mostly because of his subject matter (: but also his style is just marvelous. So in honor of Wayne Theibaud (pronounced tee-bo) we made frosting, and tinted it ourselves, then we frosted lovely cupcakes, and ate them for snack. Lastly, we drew a picture of an ice cream cone, and water colored it. Tt is such a fun letter!