printing a meadow...

Our spring meadow needed flowers and since it has been Earth Day this week, why not use junk and get creative with recycling?

Toilet and kitchen rolls were pre-prepared for this group of three and four year olds so that they could create a small meadow scene each as well as printing flowers on the BIG meadow we made together a couple of weeks ago.

The aim of this art session was not only to be creative, but also to put motor skills to the test and to support planning skills - the children had to think about what they were going to do, but still with the freedom to be creative...

one of the kitchen rolls was prepared by wrapping string round and round, criss-crossing over and over several times. This was rolled into yellow/green paint and then onto the paper...

...this trains hand-eye coordination as well as wrist and finger control. It was interesting to see how some of the children started close to them and rolled away from them, while others started at the opposite end and rolled towards them (it turned out that the two left handed children rolled towards... would be interested to see if this would happen again...). It was also interesting to observe how the children solved the problem of areas that did not get paint (as the technique requires movement and pressure, which is not THAT easy for young children) - some fixed it by rolling back and forth a few times, while others lifted the roller and replaced it where the paint stated to be missed and rolled again.

then it was time to print. There were four rolls cut into different flower shapes in four different colours (each was at least two colours as we had observed that flowers are never just one colour, but tend to be several colours or several shades of the same colour). The children could print the maximum of 10 flowers - which meant they had to make choices - were they going to make all ten, or another number? How many of each flowers type? Was it important to have all types?
All but one child did 10 flowers, who did 8 and then felt that the paper was filled enough. All children but one made 2 or 3 prints of each flower, that exception printed 8 purple and 2 red/yellow flowers. All created their own unique flower meadow despite the fact that the materials offered were the exact same. 

one of the finished pieces.

it was then time to work on the BIG meadow. The children looked at me with wide eyes as I moved the table up close and said that we would need to climb up to be able to reach... STAND on the table!!! This was exciting stuff. One of the children decided it was safer to sit on the table and printed flowers at the bottom of the painting - the other's though tested to see how high they could reach. This time they could choose 1-4 prints of each flower, and they needed to decide before hand. This was to support the children in their planning skills as well as bringing maths into the art. For one child it was VERY hard to stop at the number decided and did an extra flower each time before being reminded by the others. None of the children decided to make four prints of each flower - they all varied the amounts and none of the rolls was preferred more than another...

as the rolls got wetter with paint, the more they started to curls and the children needed to use their fingers to ensure a good flower print came onto the green background

stage two of our spring meadow...