Art with a Bang

Tuesday is one of the days that Pk doesn't go to daycare and as soon as Baby Bean goes down for his nap, we get to work on having fun and learning together. I asked Pk last night what she wanted to do and she quickly responded that she wanted to paint (that's almost always her answer - paint or glue glitter). I was having a look at Reader this morning and saw a great idea on Teach Preschool for "Hammer Painting." Given that we have a hammer in her learning bins (we used it for an activity in "Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready"), we had to give it a try. Pk had a blast.

The idea is easy and straightforward - I drew the outline of a house (o.k., I went a bit further than an outline and did the windows and the doors, as well). Pk picked a few colours of paint (purple, green and pink, which gave me the chance to talk about how we can make pink by mixing colours). Pk dipped the hammer in the paint and then banged down on the house. She had a blast. I am a bit worried about the shape of the table underneath - let's hope that the table pad and the two tablecloths protected it from dings).

I also just wanted to share something that we were given that I think is pretty cool and it's from the dollar store!!! For Pk's birthday, I asked people to get her arts and crafts supplies since we are so into creating if they didn't have another gift in mind. The dollar store was raided and we got all kinds of neat things. One of the best was this paint set. It includes 3 canvases, four colours of paint, a brush and a palette for mixing colours. I tried to buy a class set for my students ( in grade 2, we cover secondary colours and I'd love the little palettes and canvases for colour mixing) but they were sold out. I worry a bit about the paint (I tend to assume that dollar store stuff is full of lead and other scary ingredients) but in this case, I am willing to overlook my fear. The little canvases she has done look really nice and I think a set of three would look very "modern art-ish" in a series on the wall.

Tomorrow, we plan to try "turkey baster painting" - I'm guessing that I may be washing the walls afterwards!