Playng with Paint

 

Today during lunch bunch Jesse brought out some water color paints and white felt for us to explore in the sukkah. At first we used brushes to apply the paint to the felt. It was neat to see the vibrant colors but some of the kids found it tricky to get enough paint on the brush. Then we had an idea. We decided to drip the paint directly from the bottle on to the felt. It was so neat. The color was thick and vibrant and the children loved seeing the colors mix on top of each other. It was also neat to notice the different shapes the colors made and how the brush lines differ from the splatter paint effect of the bottles.  Many children came and spent time at this activity, all were excited to see the beautiful colors in our beautiful sukkah.

Where's the Paintbrush?

The children had an opportunity to do some finger painting this morning.  After an explanation and a brief demonstration, they understood that no brushes were necessary.  This creative opportunity has a sensory element that can be strange at first.  Sometimes we forget that children need to be exposed to new things over and over before they become comfortable and allow themselves to explore more deeply.  We plan to offer this activity on several more occasions to allow the children to become more comfortable with the medium and the experience of having wet, gooey, paint covered fingers and hands.

Cooperative Painting!

The Tel Aviv boys are already passionate about PAINT! Adam and Joshua were the first at the easel and were loving reaching up high to paint the paper in loooong snake brushstrokes. Micah Rosin started to paint on the other side and was fascinated by mixing colors. Elias walked over to Micah and asked, "Can I paint with you?" Micah was thrilled and then Zach came and joined them. Within no time, Micah R., Micah G., Elias, Zach, Joshua and Adam were ALL successfully painting at the easel at the same time! They loved mixing the colors and finding white spaces on the paper to paint.  Great sharing boys! Such amazing cooperation to see on the very first day!

The Pure Joy of Painting

This week the Tel Aviv class has been focusing some time on creating portraits and exploring who we are and what we look like. Yesterday we read a fabulous book called, The Colors of Us. Which tells the story of a girl who goes through her town and compares different skin tones to different delicious food, honey, nutmeg, curry, chocolate, etc.

 On the art table we had lots of different skin toned paints for kids to choose or mix to find one to paint their own self-portirts. Hannah and Lily were eager to come over and play with paint. Lily picked one she liked and started on a painting but Hannah was more interested in mixing and experimenting with the colors. She and I mixed a few colors and after we found a color we liked I would paint a little on her hand to see if it matched. It was neat to work with Hannah to try to figure out what color was needed to get the color we wanted. At one point we added a bit too much orange......Anyway after her whole hand was covered with paint I suggested she make a handprint. Then she looked up with big excited eyes and slapped her hand on a piece of paper.

 Before I knew it both Hannah and Lily were both painting their hangs and creating wonderful hand art on every piece of paper they could find. The giggling was uncontrollable. After a few minutes of quickly going through lots of tiny sheets of paper I suggested they take their hand out to the easel. First they shared a side but Hannah wanted to hit the easel to make prints and Lily wanted to rub the paint in circles. So they each had their own side to paint in the way they wanted and the giggling continued. Even though we didn't stick to the project the way we had intended to, it was wonderful to see the pure joy that came from playing with paint and how the paint was able to facilitate a wonderful bonding activity for Hannah and Lily. I realized that we hadn't had paint out for awhile and that it was wonderful that the girls just wanted to play and explore the medium without any sort of structure, maybe they will be up for a structured project in a few days, maybe not, but either way we  hope to have more paint out in the upcoming weeks and we are excited for a whole room full of giggles : )

What do you see?

The Kohavim children were so taken by the element of surprise around how their pictures would look, that we continued with this activity again today. Nathaniel said: "My picture looks like an A." Sam commented, "Mine looks like a bridge. Or a rocketship. Let's test it out." Sam enjoyed dropping his picture and watching over and over how it landed. Mia said that hers looked like "polka dots and also a bunk bed." Matt said: "My picture is one of the monsters from Journey to the Mysterious Island." I haven't quite figured out if that is a show or movie. Matt said he hadn't seen it. Can someone help me out?