Around the World: Africa

The studio is back in full swing and we couldn't be happier welcoming all these smiles!! We've traveled to Africa this week inspired by the art, music, geography, animals, and culture as we painted, danced, and played! Next week we'll travel to a new continent!

Inspired by the Sahara desert of Africa, we explored both fine and course sand to create textured paint!  Working with fine motor skills children used small spoons to scoop and dump their desired amount of sand within their paint.....or sometimes scooping paint into the sand, or even dumping sand right on top of the canvas. Proclamations of discoveries and observations could be heard around the room, as children freely experimented with the media...."this feels rough!"..."I put yellow in the blue and it turned GREEN!"

We discussed the word texture, feeling the different sands and how the texture changed when added to the paint.  How does it feel?...smooth, rough, scratchy, soft...?

Children were invited to interact with the animal transparencies on the light table.  Some children decided to work on their fine motor skills by tracing the outline of the animal and letters.  Younger children enjoyed working on both fine and gross motor skills as they painted directly on the light table. You could overhear small voices exclaiming, "Elephant! Zebra! Lion!"  Our homeschool classes carefully painted within the animal outlines and we decided to create mono-prints!