Inspired By Rainbows

Our class is bursting at the seams, ready for sun, ready for a soft warm breeze on our face, ready to hear the birds chirping, ready to stretch our bodies and run like the wind.  For the last few months we have been storm stayed, snow days, cold, layers of clothing, runny noses.  The magic and wonder of the beautiful winter left our hearts a few weeks ago.  We want spring!!!!

After a little "Saint Patricks Day" celebration the children had lots of "I Wonder..." questions about rainbows, so naturally it led to lots of cool inquiry explorations and inspirations throughout the room.  It was a wonderful invitation to breath some extra colour into our room to combat all the white and lack of sunshine in our lives.  

So with this post I wish you all a very HAPPY SPRING and OODLES of Colour!

Vision/Inspiration Atelier Board

The question on our board reads 

"What colours do you like to create with?"

Lots of fun provocation with the tulips and clay, pencil crayon sculpture, drawings.  

A lesson on pastels, followed by experimentation with smudging rainbow on construction paper.  

3D Shape and finger painting, don't you just love discovering math concepts through  ART?! 

Just one of the beautiful, cool, amazing benefits of FDK.  

Paint chip shades add to the kids knowledge of colours.  

And a little Picasso lady and the mirror peeping out for inspiration.  

Tissue Paper poofs to add sculpture, texture, form and visual interest above the creating table.

Tissue Mosaic Rainbow Spray

I'd like to say that this turned out amazing...but it didn't.  The gluing mosaic style tissue on paper turned out, but once the kids squirted the water it was a little anti-climatic as the tissue paper didn't drip colour!!!  So my learning lesson here was test the tissue first!  Luckily we had a little crepe streamers that we quickly cut up and the kids glued it on.  It dripped colour and we were able to observe some colour mixing and some cool dripping.  The kids seemed to enjoy the processes and I guess that was another lesson for me that it is sometimes (most of the time) about the process and not the product at the end.  Also, interesting to add was the kids observing me when this Art project didn't work as I thought it would and seeing how it turned into a science experiment and just rolling with it, really felt good, a great moment for the kids to see that adults don't always have the answers.

Next time:  I think this would be really fun for outdoor classroom, using the proper tissue. 

Throughout these weeks I can't seem to get the lyrics from a family favourite song when I was little.  "Flowers are Red" by Harry Chapin, here's a wee snippet of the verse.  It's a beautiful, yet sad and sometimes true song.   The best parts are the parts the little boy sings.

But the little boy said

"There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one"

No truer words are spoken about children and some adults (especially R. ECE's)

Have a beautiful Sunshiny kind of Day,

Love, Light and Rockets all the Way,

Marcia