Educational creativity

Painting trees with threes Painting trees is fun because you could use anything to make a tree pattern. First, we put glue on a rectangle for the trunk.  This girl thought it was fun to make an "R" which starts her name with the glue.  Good reason to let kids use the glue. Then, we use wax paper crumbled up and dipped in paint to create leaves.  We used red, orange, and green.  In the fall we use yellow and brown, too.  Let the kids print away.  No matter where they put the paint, it will always make a neat leafy tree. You will have to replace the wax paper when it gets too much paint on it and starts to flatten, so bring the whole roll to school with you.  The kids loved this project.  Some even did it twice.  Some kids noticed the paint was mixing to create other colors.  This is one of my favorite tree art.  I love to hang it in the room because it adds so much color to the room.  It reminds me of being outside.

     I bought these triangular make up sponges to make the DIY dot painters like Teach Preschool has done.  But, they were not big enough to fit the containers I was going to use.  Oh well.  We just used them to paint with instead.  My kids get a lot of watercolors with paint brushes.  They need a new medium to keep them interested in painting. Some kids used only one color. Some kids used many colors to make patterns. Some kids used many colors and layered they paper with so much paint it made the neatest textured painting. Some kids used the sponges on the skinny side and others used the fat side.  I have found that painting with the strangest things make the neatest looking product and provide the best process oriented artwork. If you want to learn more about process versus product artwork, you can visit this previous post .