Fun with Oil Pastel and Water Colors!

Last Thursday we had a fantastic art class with eight Unicorn, Levana and Rainbow friends! We started our lunch bunch time reading a book about Edgar Degas and we talked about how he used oil pastels to draw horses and dancers. We passed around the oil pastels and felt that they were softer than crayons and smooth to draw with. After the book we did a small science experiment. We pored some liquid water color in a cup of water and saw how the color and the water all mixed together. Then we took another cup of water and guessed what would happen if I poured oil in it. Most of the group thought that the oil and water would mix just like the food coloring and boy were they surprised! We saw that the oil floated and that they didn't mix together. I then asked them what did they think would happen if we put water color on top of oil pastels and they agreed that they wouldn't mix.

Then we started our project. We took some time and drew designs with oil pastels and after they were done we added water colors! They colors were beautiful and it was neat to watch the group use two materials that are so different in the same painting. They spent a lot of time on their pieces and were so proud of their final products! We will continue exploring color and color mixing through colored bubbles and liquid water colors this Thursday! Hope to see you there!

Where does oil come from?

In addition to lighting our oil menorah today, we also pressed some olives to remove the oil from them. All the children seemed to know that we would get oil as a result of this process. Maria brought in a mortar and pestle which she usually uses as a garlic press, to mash the olives. Teddy Fox in particular really wanted to do this activity and loved every minute of it. Mia remembered mashing grapes with her bare feet when she was a Unicorn! What a great connection Mia. We will explore the properties of oil some more as we continue to celebrate Chanukah over the next couple of weeks.