School Is In Session

I am so excited to say that I have gotten my act together. I am totally having a school for Madison and Jakob.

Now, if I can just get it to last past this week.

Anyway, here is what we are doing. I have decided to focus on one shape and color at a time. Right now we are doing 'circle' and 'blue'.

See:

Later, when the paint dries, I am going to help them glue their circles onto somse construction paper.

I realize they are only one, so I just follow their lead at this point. Here are my basic rules:

1. When they are ready to be done, they are done. For instance, the picture of the play doh circle is the only one we made because Jakob didn't want to make anymore, he wanted to explore the playdoh in different ways, and that is fine.
2. We don't talk about anything to do with the alphabet, but I do include words with their "projects." And if they point to the word, I might say, "That says, 'Circle. Can you say 'circle'?'" When they are ready for more, they will let me know, and I will follow their lead.
3. The projects that are on paper are done in conjunction with a lot of talking away from the art table. I will point out circles and the color blue in other areas. We may make a circle "collection". Their basic form of learning should be tactile and kinesthetic.
   

When you do projects with kids, you're going to want to set it up for them to be as successful as possible. What I mean by this is that you want to say "yes" and "good" as often as possible, and "no" and "stop" as little as possible. That's one reason let Jakob paint in the bath tub. I don't really have to say no at all.


Pictured below is some of the paints that I found at Target that are made for the bath tub.

I even found some cute Halloween snack cups for 1 dollar at HEB.

Hope you enjoyed this, and hopefully I will have more to post again soon.