How books can inspire artist studies in your classroom
In my previous post, I shared with you the book, “Perfect Square” by Michael Hall which we read aloud in our circletime. As another followup to our book, we explored the painting process by painting squares in the style (or influence) of Piet Mondrian…
The children were invited to explore the painting process by painting inside the squares with any color of paint they liked…
The Process
For today, we added the tape to the squares of cardboard for the kids so they could just focus on the painting process. When we explore this process later in the school year, we will invite the children to create their own taped lines and not worry so much whether they make squares or not. Even we had a hard time making perfect squares but the children didn’t seem to mind…
Painting with Colors of Choice
Each child chose the color or colors they wanted to use in their squares. Some children chose to paint every square the same color…
Other children chose to paint every square a different color…
Other children were very systematic in how they chose to paint in their squares while others just painted the squares without a plan in mind…
Reflections on the Experience
Mrs. Courtney and I planned to remove the tape from the squares after they paintings dried but they were so lovely with the tape left on that we decided perhaps to leave the tape on. This is why we chose to use cardboard, thinking the tape would remove more easily without tearing the paper. But we are still undecided and the paintings are still sitting in our drying rack waiting to go home…
Available on Amazon
Links to Grow On
Inspired by Mondrian: Art for Kids from The Imagination Tree
Painting with Scissors Like Henri Matisse from Little Running Teacher
That would be a hard choice between taking the tape off and leaving it on!
What a beautiful project! I agree I like the black tape left on too!
I am totally hitting your blog when I have all four kids at home for more easy project ideas.
I started to pull it off Rebekah and it didn’t look so good so we did leave it on!
Beautiful idea, if we remove the tape and let the children show it to their parent at home. The parents will be wondering till tomorrow they want to meet u 🙂
Hi Danny – so nice to hear from you! By the way, I do have a mobile App – just scroll to the bottom of the post and click “view by mobile” then it will give you the option of downloading the mobile app to your smart phone:) I hope your school is going well this year!
It looks lovely with the tape! Not sure what type of tape you’ve used here, but painter’s tape usually peels off easily without ripping, even on paper! For future projects. 🙂 Thanks for sharing a great activity!
I will give painter’s tape a try on our next activity where we want to pull the tape off. This tape pulled the paper too so we left it on.
I absolutely love reading your posts! I am starting a preschool and I have been so inspired by your projects and the approach you take to helping preschoolers to discover on their own. Thank you for your hard work and inspiration. It has been great for someone like me who is aiming to give children a learning atmosphere like you have created.
This is such a wonderful way to explore a square. I love this artist.
Me encanta con la cinta, para mi grupo de alumnos con 32 niños, es mucho trabajo poner cinta para todos pero puedo optar por fotocopiar la hoja con cuadrados para explorar combinación de colores o para observar el criterio que cada uno toma al elegirlos, como siempre tus ideas son excelentes y podemos adaptarlas a nuestras condiciones de trabajo. Saludos!!!!!
I love how you adapt to your make it work for your classroom Verónica! Thank you for sharing today and I am so glad you read my blog:)
My very best to you…
Deborah
Thanks it was a great activity!!! I will try out with my kids
What kind of tape did you use??
I use colorful painters tape.