This was another great lesson for my kinders. I snagged this idea from several different sources, one being my son's preschool teacher. He had brought home a large pale blue piece of construction paper with a die-cut yellow vase glued on. Then my son had drawn stems with a brown crayon and stamped pussywillow blossoms with his finger dipped in white paint.
For my class, I decided to take this a step further and teach some symmetrical cutting as well! I taught them what the word symmetrical meant and then demonstrated how to cut a vase this way.
Day 1: Each child received a 9 x 12" piece of white construction paper. I had pre-cut squares of multi-colored tissue paper. I also put out containers of glue mixed with a little bit of water. I use large yogurt containers for this. I showed them how to paint the glue on with acrylic paint brushes to make the tissue squares stick to the construction paper. This can be a bit tricky for them. They must use a clean finger to hold the square in place while they paint with the other hand from the inside out onto the white paper. They glued as many squares as they liked in various colors all over the paper. This took the entire 35 minute class period. They were set out to dry.
Day 2: I showed the kids how to fold the paper in half (tissue-covered side folded in) and how to draw a line from top to bottom on the plain side (with fold to one side). To make this work for all skill levels it is important to show three types of lines. I told them they could draw a straight line--up and down, a slanted line, or a curvy line. You can see from the pictures the different wonderful results that came from this.
After the line was drawn, the kids were able to cut. Some of them needed help with this, especially if their line was particularly wavy! They loved opening up their vases seeing how they "matched" on each side!
We then glued our vases to a 12 x 18" colorful piece of construction paper making sure they glued it near the bottom of the paper. This left room at the top for our willows.
I showed the kids an artificial pussywillow branch first and showed them how there is a long brown stem with white, soft blossoms coming off the sides. With a brown crayon, they drew long branches coming from inside the vase. You do need to remind them that the branches are coming from inside the vase. Then came the fun part of dipping one finger into a plate of white tempera and printing our "blossoms".
This was such a terrific spring lesson--bright colors, blossoms, and so many things to learn wrapped up in one beautiful piece of artwork!
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