Making Rainbows!

After we created our Colour Mixing Rainbow, there were lots of paint sample sheets left over, so thought the children might like to make their own rainbows.  I cut the samples sheets up so we ended up with lots of shades of each colour. 

I then needed a rainbow template, so downloaded one from the internet and enlarged it using Publisher. 

I didn't think the paper rainbow would take the weight of the colour sample sheets so transfered the rainbow onto card.

You could draw one by hand, but I do admit to being a bit of a

perfectionist!

The children then began to create their rainbows. 

They chose their own colours and were very focused on staying within the lines!

I mixed all the colours together in one pot as I wanted the children to identify the colours and this led to conversations about the different shades.  The rainbow closest is mine! I find the children are more willing to join in an activity if I am doing it and infact look at me very suspiciously if I try to get them to do something that I am not joining in!

The children decided themselves what colour they wanted each section of their rainbow to be.

At one point we started to run low on yellows.  So noticing me cutting some more, J was keen to join in this part of the activity as well and set about cutting her own. 

Almost finished!  J's interest was waining a bit at this point so we made the activity into a race - who could finish first!  Being highly competitive her rainbow was finished in no time!

After cutting all those little squares it seemed a shame just to throw the rest away, so I added them to our resource wall and the children can use them for gluing or anything else they can think of!

Links to EYFS:

PD: Using Equipment and Materials (using the scissors and glue spreaders)

CD: Exploring Media and Materials (talking about the shades of colours / selecting particular colours)

Paper Beads

One of the little boys I look after currently is very interested in threading, so I thought I could get the older children making paper beads that we could then use to make necklaces.  These are really easy to make.

 I used gummed paper, but these are equally easy to make with normal paper.  To make the beads:

1.  Cut out isosceles triangles from your sheet of paper (mine were 3cm wide and as long as the width of the paper).

2.  Starting with the widest end of the triangle roll them up around an object like a pen (great for small motor development!)

3. When you get near to the end of the triangle, wet down if using gummed paper, or spread glue onto the end of the paper and then continue to roll.  Once rolled, slide the bead carefully off of the pen.

We thought shiny beads would be fab, so painted ours with glitter gel.

The bead rolling, took lots of concentration!

But they looked really effective!

We then set about creating our necklaces.

We had to be careful not to squash them (but they were quite sturdy).

The children were really pleased with their necklaces.

As they found them quite easy to thread, I've made them some smaller beads to make necklaces with next week!

Butterflies - Eric Carle style - version 2!

No, I'm not totally obsessed with butterflies / Eric Carle!  I wanted a really simple activity I could do at the Childminding Group along this theme.  Although the butterflies we already created looked fab, they were never going to work with 20+ children ranging in age from 6m - 4 years in 2 hours.  So I decided to simplify the process and print straight onto the butterfly templates.  I got my guinea pigs (oops I mean children) to work! 

First I got them to pick a colour to paint the butterfly with.  I needed to restrict the amount of paint they used, otherwise I could predict our butterflies ending up that horrible purply brown colour.  So I thought one way of doing this might be to paint using our hands, which of course they were more than happy to oblige.  This generated lots of giggles as the paint was 'cold and tickly'. 

Once we had the majority of the butterfly covered, I got them to select another colour. Again the idea should be to select contrasting colours, but I wanted to allow the children as much freedom as possible during the activity.  This time they used their brushes to make big marks on the paper, again needing encouragement to avoid focusing only on the centre of the paper. 

They then got to pick the resource they would like to use for printing and selected another colour.  We stuck to the ones we had used for the other butterfly activity - stickle brick, duplo brick, carpet square and cardboard tube.

Here are our finished butterflies.  Hmmm not bad and much quicker to do!

Links to EYFS:
CLL: Language for Communication (following instructions)
CLL: Handwriting (making lines across the paper with the paint)
PD: Using Equipment and Materials (using equipment, developing hand / eye coordination)
CD: Exploring Media and Materials (differentiating colours, creating collages)

Hungry Caterpillar Style Butterflies

We thought we would join in the celebrations of Eric Carle's birthday (author of the Hungry Caterpillar) and create some butterflies this week.  We watched Eric's unique technique for painting on his website and decided to use the simplied version  Anna at The Imagination Tree had thought up.

Luckily we already had some very thick tissue paper. Thicker is better as it tends to tear whilst the children are trying to paint it.  Although the idea is to use contrasting colours, I didn't want to be too prescriptive and let the children select the colours they wished to use.  So we chose the colour of tissue paper we wanted and then the
first colour paint and made large brush marks across the paper. 




This took quite a lot of encouragement initially as the
children both seemed to want to colour in the centre
of the paper with lots and lots of paint! We then
selected another colour and made some more large
brush marks. 

Next was the part they enjoyed the most, stamping, evident in the big smiles!  They each selected an object to use, we used small squares of carpet, duplo bricks, sticklebricks and a small cardboard tube andstamped onto their card using another colour paint. 

We went on to create about 15 sheets of tissue paper (cooking lunch in the kitchen was a bit of a struggle!). 

While we waited for our masterpieces to dry, we created a butterfly template on the laptop, blew it up and printed it off.  Okay, so I did the butterfly and they raced round the garden like lunatics! (I think those creations required more concentration than I had realised!)

However, keen to be involved in every stage of this  project, I had two very willing volunteers to help me piece the 9 A4 sheets of black together, just like a giant jigsaw!  They also insisted on helping to stick it together, consequently this part took quite a long time and a lot of unsticking and repositioning!  We then used our template to cut out some butterflies from card.  

After resorting to the hairdrier, I cut up the  paintings   into small squares and triangles (with hindsight I probably cut ours a bit too small and they would have been more effective if they were larger) and the children stuck them onto their butterfly templates.

And here are our finished creations!

Links to EYFS:
CLL: Language for Communication (following instructions)
CLL: Handwriting (making lines across the paper with the paint)
PD: Using Equipment and Materials (using equipment, developing hand / eye coordination)
CD: Exploring Media and Materials (differentiating colours, creating collages)