I don’t know about you, but I am always looking for a new or unique tool for painting for making the process fun and interesting for children. Â These compasses that we used for painting circles really fit the bill…
I’ve shared with you how we have been exploring circles and other shapes lately. Â Deborah picked up these awesome compasses at the Dollar Tree, obviously intending to use them for making circles. She wanted to borrow the brilliant idea from Housing a Forest of using paintbrushes, instead of a standard pencil that you would normally use in a compass…
Finding a paintbrush that fits in the compass was a bit challenging. Â Fortunately, we have several different sized paint brushes to choose from, so we picked the best fit. Â It was still a little loose, so Mr. Hayden wrapped a rubber band around the paintbrush so it wouldn’t slip…
Cups of paint were set out along with the compasses for the children to dip their paintbrushes in.  The children had never seen a compass before, so we had to demonstrate how to use it.  Now that I think about it, I haven’t had much use for a compass since high school math class!  You may remember those old metal compasses with a sharp point.  Well, these were made of plastic, so there was a small blunt point and not a sharp point to worry about.  We placed two pieces of foam board on the table then showed the children how poke one end of the compass into the paper on the foam board  and ten dip the brush into the paint and move the brush around in a circle. And then we set the children loose, armed with their new compass paintbrushes, some paint, and large sheets of white paper…
I couldn’t begin to imagine how or if the children would be able to make this work. Â Compasses are difficult tools to work with, even for adults. Â As with most of our art processes, we focused more on allowing the children to explore this new and unfamiliar tool, rather than on the end product. Â But WOW, were we ever surprised by the results…
Not all of the children chose to do this particular activity, but all of those who attempted it, gave 100% effort! Â We found that our younger students had a harder time keeping their compass centered in the middle of their paper. Â Sometimes they accidentally squeezed the compass, which broke their circle. Â And some of the children preferred to just swipe their brush back and forth in an arc, rather than making a whole circle. Â Nonetheless, it was an interesting process for them to explore…
But what was most surprising about this process was the focus and determination that some of our children had to create a true circle…
It was quite an accomplishment to create such a large, perfect circle. Â But one of our little guys didn’t stop there, he went on to try to paint a circle inside of a circle. Â How cool!
This was such a great art process and a really unique way to explore circles! Â I can’t wait to use the compasses again in a new way! Â What are your favorite painting tools?
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