Animals in our nature - Art works

 

Art activities are very stimulating for the development of creativity, attention and fine motor skills.

They allow children to translate their thoughts into something visible and tangible.

The children made owls from small branches and collage paper.

 

We decorated the door out of hammer and collage paper in order to make things feel like the animals are with us in the kindergarten. The children chose to make a squirrel, an owl and a bear.

Clay is very interesting to children because it gives them an amazing feeling under their little hands and fingers and they really like to model with clay. The introduction to this activity was the story “Ježeva kućica”which is about forest animals.

The boys liked playing with plastic forest animals the most and wanted us to build a small forest in our room. We offered them paper plates and rolls of toilet paper from which the children made trees, stones, branches, cones and chestnuts with which they decorated and shaped the forest.

 

 

Our forest - Estonian forest

 THEME: ESTONIAN FOREST (project)

CHILDREN AGE: 4-6 years

OBJECTIVES: The child knows the worth of the forest in our nature. The child knows trees in Estonia. The knows the names of the trees and tells them (pine, fir, birch). The child knows what the tree needs to grow (soil, water, light). The child watches different pictures and books from trees. The child is active in discussions. The child draws favorite tree. The child cuts out and glues it on the given base paper. The child finds things made of wood in the group. The child knows that pen is made of wood. The child actively participates in doing group art work (tree from leftovers from sharpening pens). The child knows how to use digital storytelling pen. The child knows how to play digital game about forest and nature.

TOOLS/MATERIALS: different books and pictures about forest; wax chalks, paper, base paper, scissors, glue; pen, PVA-glue, leftovers from sharpening pens, crepe paper, base card; digital storytelling pen and its sets about nature.

ACTIVITY:

- Pictures - looking, discussions

3/4 from Estonia is covered with forest and bog. Forest is a part of our culture, our way of thinking. Estonia is rich of its untouched nature. 

With children - our forest values - made a concept map.

Then we discussed what is forest protected areas. We reminded concept nature protection. We found out that there is 3000 trees per person in forests. The average tree age is about 60 years. We discussed that who has planted trees in the forest. Talked about different forests is Estonia. The most we have pine trees, then comes birch, fir and so on. Then we looked the books about forests. 

We found out that from one average tree you can have 70 kg paper or 10 000 sheets of paper A4. Discussion, is it a lot or not?

Then we discover the trees on our kindergarten yard. Like the rowans are planted by children who graduated our kindergarten 13-15 years ago. And the birch trees are older then 60 years. We compare them and we name adjectives about them.

- Drawing

The children draw the tree that they like the best, cuts it out and glues on the base paper to make collaborative art work. Together it is a forest.

- Discussion

What is made of wood? Find things from the group room what is made of wood. 

Pens - are made of soft wood, without branch knot and is easily cut that's why it is easy to sharpen them. And all of the pen ends up in trash. We don't use it. Or can we use it? What can we do that less of pen ends up in trash? To use pen wisely, cut less and not so often. But how can we use the leftovers?

- Art work

In collaboration we made a tree from the pen sharpening leftovers. We drew a tree, put some PVA-glue on it, then on the glue went pen sharpening leftovers and we decorated it crepe paper leaves. 

- Embedding the topic - on free time

Children can use the digital storytelling pen, read and look books about nature, play board games of nature and so on.

Our Forest - What is forest? Lets find out!

THEME: What is forest? Lets find out! (project)

CHILDREN AGE: 3-4 years

OBJECTIVES: The child knows what is forest. The child can mention some plants/trees/flowers and animals/birds/bugs that are in forest. Activity 1: The child learns about a drawing program in tablet and tries to use it. The child is brave and introduces his/hers drawing to others. Activity 2: The child is active and brave in the forest. The child puts gathered nature materials in the art work. The child looks at art work. The child is active to give opinion about the most exiting treasure that is worth exploring further. Activity 3: The child knows pine cone (where it grows, why some cones are open and some closed). The child finds pine cones from the forest and compares them (size, color,  openness). The child participates actively doing the experiments. The child makes flowers from the pine cones and makes Mother's Day cards from them.

TOOLS/MATERIALS: Activity 1: tablet, paper, pen, printer, clothespin to put pictures up. Activity 2: every child has own treasure collecting bowl, name sign, bag, vests, table, chairs, Y-shape branches, yarn. Activity 3: drawing or showing, pine cones, for the experiment: bowl with water, jar with hot water, empty jar, for arts: pine cones flowers, colors, brushes, hot glue, paper for the cards.

PREPARATIONS: Activity 1: charge tablet, download app "Paint for kids". Activity 2. find bowls for the treasures, make name signs, gather Y-shape branches from the forest, twine yarn on it different colors. Activity 3: find or draw pictures with pine tree, cones, seeds, branches. Print it out. Out ready on table bowl with water and empty jars. Cut pine flowers with tongs.

ACTIVITY:

Activity 1: Individual activity. so that the children don't copy each other they will go to teacher to draw with the tablet program one by one. Firstly the teachers explains the program opportunities: how to draw with finger and how to choose colors. Then teacher asks to draw a picture on theme "What is forest?". If necessary ask questions like what grows there? who lives there? and then the children is drawing. The teachers ask questions about the pictures, so she will be able to help the child during the presentation if necessary. When the drawing is ready the teachers saves it to the tablet. When all the children have made the drawings, the teacher prints them out. The drawings are put on the wall. The child goes to his/hers drawing and introduces it to the others. If necessary teacher helps. Afterward there is a discussion what is forest, what grows there and who lives there.

Activity 2: Hike to the forest. Teacher gives the treasure bowls for everybody. Each child has to collect what he/she thinks is exiting (plants, rocks, branches, cones, bark and so on). When they are ready then they have some free time to explore the forest. Back in kindergarten the activity continues with small groups outside under the roof area. The child picks one Y-shape branch with twine yarn. The teacher asks then to choose materials from his/hers treasure bowl to twine between the yarn (from bottom to top and from side to side). And ask for teachers help if needed. After everybody are ready they explored the art works together. Then they pick one treasure to investigate further in the next activity. They all decided for the pine cones.

Activity 3: Another hike to the forest. Teacher shows pictures from a pine tree and children have to find it in the forest. They compare it to other coniferous trees. Now teachers asks them to collect only pine cones for the next activity.

Inside the activity continues with experiments. They say that you can predict weather with the pine cones. So they tried it out. Some of the pine cones were put to the water (to hot and cold water), some pine cones were left to dry on the windowsill by sun and some went to the dryer. After the lunch break and little sleep, they explored what had happened to the cones. They found out that in the water the pine cones stayed closed, and the ones under the sun and dryer had opened. So if the pine cone is closed it means that it is wet weather. And when the pine cones are open then it is dry weather! 

Afterwards everybody made lovely pictures for the mothers from the pine cones. The teacher cut the cones to suitable peaces, the children colored them and glued them with hot glue on the base from plywood which was also colored. Behind it they glued lovely things that the child had said about her/his mother.

Our Forest - CRAFTS FROM NATURE MATERIALS

THEME: MOTHER'S DAY GIFT

CHILDREN AGE: 5-7 years

OBJECTIVES: The child wants to make his mother happy.

MATERIALS/TOOLS: Glass jars, circles cut from cardboard, double-sided tape, scissors, glittering sand, moss collected from the hike, flowers, lichens, cones, plants, branches, etc. The book "We make from natural materials"

PREPARATION: The natural material collected from the hike (divided into groups and pre-dried) and the tools are placed on the table. Discussion and conversation: "I make a vase for my mother"

ACTIVITY: The child chooses a natural material to decorate the glass jar and the jar becomes a vase. First, double-sided tape is glued under the jar, then a circle cut from cardboard is attached to the jar. The jar is now completely covered with double-sided tape. The child chooses the tools he likes from the natural material collected during the trip and presses the decorative elements onto the vase with double-sided tape. Finally, it shakes the glittering sand on the vase. The children really enjoyed making vases.

All the vases were taken home so here are examples from where we took the idea for the art work.

Our Forest - activity Look, our forest!

In the next stage, we look at the branch, touch it and smell it. The children try to draw after the branch they have seen. Children draw lines with a brush and then make sheets by pressing with a paper towel.

The related activity lasted for a week.

 Activity: Look, our forest!

Theme: Forest as our living environment. Protective attitude towards nature.

Children age: 2-3 years

Objectives: The child shows and tries to use proper words: front, top, side and back; A child prints with a paper towel and draws lines with a painting comb; The child knows that the forest is the home of a wild animal. The child knows that wild animals live in the forest.

Used materials: Small wild animals: tit, wolf, elk, rabbit, wild boar, fox and bear. Kinetic sand, staggered branches, cones and wild animals. For artistic activities: blue and yellow paint, a comb brush. The next day: brush and paper doll, brown color and light green color.

Activity:

We go for a walk in the woods with the children quite often. We asked the children what they think is the forest? The children knew that there were trees, animals, birds in the forest. Then we started discussing from the beginning - What is a TREE. We learned that the tree has branches and a leg. The trees look different in winter and summer. The children thought that the trees were green and brown. The children and I went outside to see the trees in our yard.

    

In the group there were staggered birch branches, we looked at them and named them: branch, leaf. The branch was brown and the leaf was green.

After the morning round, the children were divided into activities: art and mathematical play.

Then we look at what the trees are like. Same know that the tree has trunks and branches. Leaves come to the branches. The leaves are yellow.

Art: drawing a forest: a child spreads yellow and blue with a comb brush, we get green. We let the work dry and continue the next day.

Math / game: animals on the sand. Inside the sand are branches, cones, like a forest. We agree that there are branches and cones from the game. Let's start putting the animals in the forest together. The child names the animal and tries to say where he puts the animal: I put the fox behind the elk, I put the piglet in front of the tree, and so on. The aim is to play with the children and thus improve their vocabulary and sentence structure. In the game, it also happened that the animal goes to another animal and says hello to him!

Our forest -The Spring Tree

 The youngest group talked about the seasons and how the trees look in the spring, summer, autumn and winter. They made a weather calendar on the board so they could also observe and make notes on daily basis. They put photos of the forests in different types of weather like sunny, rainy, snowy, cloudy and windy and then they would look out of the window and compare what they see outside with the given photos.

They talked about the current season and what kind of colors they see on the photographs. They were offered collage paper and paper rolls to make a spring tree.

The other group of older children had the same activity but in a different setting. After singing songs about spring and flowers they were given the opportunity to express themselves through an art form that includes 3D art using cardboard and paint. While they cut, glued and painted the teachers put instrumental music called "The Spring forest" so they could hear the sounds of birds singing, wind blowing etc.

Our Forest - The Giving Tree

 Our youngest group had an activity where they read a story "The Giving Tree" and then the teachers offered them materials like fabric and collage paper to make their own trees and one group tree. They were learning about words like stump, stem, branches and fruit and then discussed what their trees have and why.

Handprints and finger painting.

Studying tree seedlings, branches and leaves.