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We are in week three of our Global Passport unit with our Experience Preschool curriculum and we are focusing on Natural Wonders. Today we learned about the Grand Canyon! Our Invitation to Create project today was titled Layered Art. We focused on our topic poster at circle time and our inspiration photo and talked about what we noticed. They noticed that the rocks were different colors, they noticed layers, and they noticed the river at the bottom. They noticed the sunset in the background and we talked about the different colors the sunset brought to the picture. Our topic poster and inspiration photo starts some great conversations to further our learning on the topic.
After circle time we sat down for art. I demonstrated how to rip a piece of paper and then I passed out different colors. The colors of paper were similar to the colors in our inspiration photo. They worked on tearing strips of paper and then glued them down on another piece of paper, creating layered art. Some of my students had a hard time getting their grip just right to where they could tear long pieces. Tearing paper can be harder then it looks, however, tearing paper is a great project for preschoolers because it helps them enhance their grip with their fingers and it increases their hand strength which is needed for zippers, handwriting, using buttons, etc. There are so many reasons to give your preschooler a piece of paper to tear up!
After a few tries and adjustments of how they were holding their paper they made some great layered art! Our picture of the Grand Canyon inspired our artwork today. It was interesting to see how they laid out their strips. Some glued them down vertically and some glued them horizontally, like shown below.
I love giving my preschoolers the inspiration photo and seeing their own ideas come to life through their artwork. To some this may look like just strips of paper glued down to another piece of paper but to the little artists who created it it's their version of the Grand Canyon, and they worked on strengthening their small muscles in their hands with this fun project.
We are looking forward to learning about more Natural Wonders this week with our Experience Early Learning Curriculum.
