Poinsettia Mosaic Collage

The other day I set out the supplies for my son to make this great poinsettia craft. He's in Kindergarten, so I wanted to give him some tracing, cutting and other fine motor control practice--oh, and he made this nice little piece for the art wall in our dining room. A win/win, I'd say!

I first saw a version of this project this fall, I think, on the blog Panther's Palette written by Pam Speaker. Her version was colorful and I was instantly drawn to it--as was my son who was looking over my shoulder and said, "I want to make THAT!" As he was adding the tissue paper poofs to his original piece, I thought how we could change the colors of the project to make it look like a daffodil for spring. The more I thought about it, I thought it could also make a great daisy or black-eyed susan for the summer, and poinsettia for winter. I'd love to make four of these depicting the four seasons! I'll put it on the neverending to-do list! For now, here's the winter version:

Poinsettia Mosaic Collage

Supplies Needed:

• 1 9x12" piece of off-white construction paper
• Red, green, white and yellow construction paper scraps
• Scrap of card stock, optional
• Yellow tissue paper, cut into 1" squares
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Glue stick
• Elmer's glue
• Little cup for glue

Directions:

1. Glue a strip of green paper onto the page for a stem. Add a circle of yellow in the center of the page for the center of the flower.

2. Create a petal shape on card stock. Trace the petal shape onto the red paper and cut out 6 petals or so. I showed my son how to fold the paper a couple of times, then trace the shape and cut through the entire stack to create multiple petals in one shot. Glue the petals on around the flower's center.

3. Cut some 1/2" strips from red, green and white paper. Staple the strips together at one end. Use the scissors to cut through all of the strips at the same time to make a bunch of little 1/2" squares. Glue these down in a pattern around the outside edge of the piece.

4. Pour a bit of Elmer's glue in a small bowl or tray. Take one of the tissue paper squares and wrap it over the eraser end of the pencil. Dip the tissue paper in the glue and then touch ot to the paper in the center of the flower. Release the tissue paper and it should create a 3D "poof" with the tissue. Repeat as desired. I thought my son would use the tissue paper just in the center of the flower, but he put them on the petals too. Whatever you like...

You can also look up the story, The Legend of the Poinsettia,  online if you wanted to add a literature/moral/spiritual aspect to this project. Enjoy!

Fall Trees With Cork-Stamped Leaves

I had the best time today with about 60 kindergardeners! I was asked to do an art project with them as part of a Fall-themed day their teachers had created for them. It was wonderful--the children were so happy and they were able to explore outside, do some fun movement activities (I joined in too!) and they also did leaf rubbings and this stamping project with me. Thank you so much to the Kindergarten teachers at Clark Elementary School for allowing me to come in for the afternoon.

This picture has a flurry of fall leaves
flying wildly all over--and note the piles on the ground.
I'm so glad I'm not raking all of those leaves up!

I shared a nice little book called "Leaf Jumpers," by Carole Gerber with the children. This book was different than I expected--it's a fiction book. It described the sound, shapes and colors of leaves and identifies eight different kinds of leaf shapes within its pages. This would be a great book to read before going on a leaf hunt! It got us thinking about the colors and shapes of leaves. It also had some very poetic ways of describing the colors of the leaves: "...flame bright and vivid like a match." The back of the book has a little page on the science of leaves and why they change color.

I had the children listen carefully since this project had tracing, cutting, gluing and stamping. We need to listen when doing so much stuff with our art.  I then gave them a quick demo on how to stamp using the corks: dip in paint then stamp gently on paper--no smooshing the cork around! We aren't painting with a brush. It's up and down only.

Next we went over to our tables and began to work. What a great time and a lovely lesson on color and printmaking. Enjoy!

Fall Cork-stamped Trees

Supplies Needed:

• One 12" x 18" piece of construction paper for background (light blue or whatever color you'd like)
• One 9" x 12" piece of brown construction paper for tree trunk and branches
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Glue stick
• Wine Corks
• Paper plates for paint palettes
• Red, Orange, Yellow, and Brown Tempera Paint
• Newspapers to cover work surface

Directions:

1. Trace the child's hand and part of his/her forearm onto the brown paper. This will be the trunk and branches of the tree. Cut the tracing out (most of the children were fine with this--we only lost a couple paper fingers, er, I mean, branches. Glue the trunk and branches to the background paper, making sure the base of your tree trunk is at the bottom of the page.

2. Dip the cork into the paint and stamp leaves all over the paper, filling your tree with beautiful colored leaves!  It's important to have the children fill the ENTIRE top of the tree with leaves--not just a couple along the edges of the branches! No naked trees--this isn't winter. Make sure you get all four colors of paint on your tree.

That's it! A beautiful fall keepsake!

Fall Leaf Rubbings:

When the children were done, they could move over to a couple tables where I had long sheets of newsprint from a roll, taped down. Under the paper, I had placed different types of leaves. They then could use flat-sided crayons to do rubbings and discover the different leaves I had "hidden" under the paper. This was a nice project to keep little hands busy for the last five minutes of class.