It is so exciting to see new growth coming up all around our preschool. Along with new growth came an invitation to spend our morning hunting for different colors of nature and creating our own drip-drop nature paintings…
When the children came to preschool, they found paint swatches and empty paper plates all set up on the table and ready for questions and discussion about what these could possibly be for…
Mrs. Courtney took the time to mix up paint colors that matched each of our paint color swatches. The paint colors looked so lovely that the children couldn’t wait to explore all of the wonderful colors but first we had to go outside and gather up items from nature…
We took all of our paper plates out and invited the children to see if they could find items from nature that would match each color on our paper plates…
Mrs. Courtney began by taking the children on a nature walk through our woods and while on their walk, they talked about what colors they could see all around them and began collecting some items for our collection…
When the children returned from their nature walk through the woods, they began the process of sorting items from their nature walk on our paper plates…
There were still many colors missing so the children continued to search for more colors of nature until we were able to find at least a few things for each color on our paper plates…
Once we had a good collection of nature colors on our paper plates, we took the plates inside to compare the items we had collected. We compared which color had the most items and which had the least. For the color orange, we didn’t find anything at all but no worries because one of our students happened to have an orange shoe which gave us the opportunity to compare nature and non-nature for a few minutes…
After a morning of hunting the colors of nature, we used the items we found to explore the process of drip-drop painting. The children began by selecting nature items from our paper plates to arrange on their own cardboard palette…
Once the children had arranged the items they wanted on their cardboard palette, they began dripping spoonfuls of paint on top of the items they selected.  (The paint has glue mixed in with each color so when the paint dries, the nature items will stick to the cardboard palette or the paint)…
The children were free to add as many items as they wished onto their paintings. Some of the children used a little bit of every color and a selection of every color of nature items we had collected while others chose just one or two items to drip paint on….
This little guy only wanted one rock and one small flower on his cardboard palette…
Although he chose only two items from nature, he spent the longest of everyone painting his palette until every single space on the palette had color…
Whether a child used lots of paint or very little and lots of nature items or very few, the results of their nature palettes were astounding which I am excited to share with you…
Available on Amazon
Links to Grow On
Head outdoors for a listening walk by Teach Preschool
Take a picture walk by Teach Preschool
Nature Shadow Boxes by Teach Preschool