preschool pumpkins

This is the first year I have offered a preschool art class and although I am now trying to not run a class without at least four students, for preschool I made an exception.

How can one resist the charm of three year olds?

I have two absolutely darling little girls in the class. 

I decided to do the first project with paint and focus on color mixing.

Since it is October, it seemed only natural to make the subject matter Jack o'Lanterns.

First I gave the girls a black oil pastel to draw a 'big' circle and a horizon line.  I had a real pumpkin on the table for them to look at too.

I then gave them yellow and red paint.  We painted yellow in the 'sky' and red on the 'ground'.

OK in hindsight, I should of done this the opposite way.  The class starts at 10am, so I can't even blame it on a lack of coffee! I'm just going to blame it on being smitten with all the cuteness that came with having charming three year olds in the room. 

Once they painted the sky yellow and the ground red, I asked them to take red and yellow and mix it together in their circle. Then I asked them what color they got and they answered, "RED!"

sigh. 

It was a very red orange, not going to lie. So I asked them to add a little more yellow to the circle and tried again and I wish I could say there was an exclamation of "ORANGE" but alas there was not, except on my part in hopes of getting them to see they had created a new color.

I know they realized it, but to be honest, they were far more interested in just putting paint on the picture. Who can blame them, painting is fun.

I then put out some blue and they added it to the sky and ground. Again I asked them with varying degrees of success what colors they were discovering. Green was much more recognizable than the purple they were creating on the paper.

With white, I had them add a line for the stem. Then I quickly dried the work with a blowdryer while they washed the paint off their hands. To finish the work up, I gave them the black oil pastel again and let them outline things.

This was helpful to differentiate the pumpkin from the background and also a chance for them to add faces to their pumpkins.  I showed them how after making their lines and faces they could smear the black color.

They were not impressed that their clean hands were once again dirty with black oil pastel but it did help bring the work together.

When finished I asked them what color red and yellow made when mixed together and was met by the sound of crickets.  We'll do some more projects with color mixing in the future and I know over time it will click.

I am told by the mothers they had a good time, which is the point of the entire thing.  And I could not imagine two cuter little Jack 0'Lanterns than these ones.

There are two more spots available in this Monday morning class.  Contact me through KudzuStudio.com if you are interested in registering your little one.  We meet every Monday at 10am. Parents are welcome to stay or can leave for much needed "mommy time" for the 45 minutes.