Falling Leaves

Fall into fall with this fun project for toddlers. This morning I had a great group of kids at the OKCMOA ages 15 months-3years. We gathered around and talked about changing leaves. We looked at autumn trees in a book and read a story. We learned leaves come in many colors and shapes. In the gallery our magic color was red.



Each workstation was set up with white paper and tree trunks. I pre-cut the trunks. They are simple...big Y's. Each little student used a glue stick to apply their trees.



For a fun way to give our leaves different shapes we used foam stamps. These are the sticker kind and I put them on the end of a glue stick to make it easy for little hands to stamp. If I had though of it earlier I would have cut small wood blocks. Oh well, another day!






I gave the kids one color at a time. First we used green. stamp, stamp, stamp!



Then yellow, orange, red and brown. Some of us even got our hands involved! Great fun today. Happy fall!

For this project you will need:
-white paper
-brown construction paper
-scissors
-foam shapes with sticker back
-glue sticks
-object for foam stickers (ie, glue stick, block, corks)

Little Monsters

Happy Halloween! Monsters aren't just for Halloween, you can make these sweet guys anytime! A great group of children ages 15 months-3 years old joined me for a monster making class.



We read Goodnight Goon, talked about monsters and found spooky colors in the gallery. We found goon green, pumpkin orange and black cat.



I forgot to take pictures of the assembly line, but it was pretty much set up like this. I pre-cut monster eyes, noses, mouths and teeth. I cut silly teeth (rectangles) and sharp teeth (triangles). I also pre-cut hair which the kids could bend, crunch or curl. **Older children could cut all of their own pieces.



Everyone went through the line to pick their parts in a variety of colors. Monster bodies were from a piece of paper folded in half and artists and helpers were instructed to cut any shape, just not to cut the fold.

Monsters unfolded reveal a fun shape. Perfect!

This is glued to a heavy piece of black paper. We used tagboard. From here kids used a gluestick to make their monster! They turned out very silly, scary and quite fun!









You will need:
-cardstock
-scissors
-gluestick
-black tagboard

It takes a Village

For my son's school auction I lead the 1st grade art project I titled "It takes a Village." Thinking of how true that statement is for the auction alone. All the parents, teachers, businesses that donated items and more to put this fund-raising shindig together. My small part was a few man hours to complete two class projects that happily sold for quite a bit of money! (Both projects went for over $2,000 dollars!) This is money the school will use for new computers and classroom upgrades. So wonderful.

I wish I had taken better pictures of these pieces. They really did turn out so beautiful.





You can do this on your own!
You will need:
-colored card stock
-oil pastels
-scissors
-acid free glue dots
-framing optional

This is a collaboration piece. I pre-cut different shaped buildings from card stock. Children were instructed to use oil pastels to decorate their building as a home, store, apartment, etc. They were told to think about details like doors, windows, landscaping, shingles, etc.

I collected all the buildings and created a childlike background. The background was done on two pieces of pastel paper and colored on top of with oil pastel. I cut and colored trees and shrubs. All of the pieces were put down with acid free glue dots. The finished piece was 30x24 matted and framed. I think this would be cute on a small scale as well!

Toddlers build Venice

So, I had a pretty neat idea that I shared with the Museum and it is now a realization thanks to someone that could share the vision and find the funding. Tiny Tuesdays at the OKCMOA was born. It's open ended art making for little ones ages 2-5 once a month from 10-12pm.

I know how hard it can be to get to a class on time and I hope this will give Moms some flexibility with their schedule. I hope some of you will share this new adventure and visit me at the Museum.

Today we had Venice on our mind using, La Serenissima: Eighteenth-Century Venetian Art from North American Collections as an inspiration.

I had some books to look at:


I set up our shapes in assembly line fashion for the little ones to choose from.







We used shapes to build our city, grounding the piece with a bridge. Above the bridge are buildings and below are our boats ready to set sail.

Here are some of our pieces. I hope you enjoy!

You will need:
-14x11 black poster board
-pre-cut shapes (squares, rectangles, semi-circles, triangles and more)
-glue stick
-scissors

Fancy Fabric Collage

In a fun class for children ages 15-36 months I prepared a fun fabric collage project. This class went hand in hand with the OKCMOA's (now gone) exhibit, Sketch to Screen: The Art of Hollywood Costume Design. The exhibit featured many famous costumes that were worn in some of your favorite movies. Who doesn't love costumes?

First we talked about fabric. What is fabric? "Your shirt is blue fabric, your dress is pink fabric" "What color of fabric am I wearing?" Then we talked about costumes. "Do you ever play dress up? What is your favorite costume? We read a Halloween book, Spot's Halloween-which might seem odd in August, but it's about costumes and even has Spot and his friends in costumes that are in the exhibit...Superman, Cowboy, perfect. These are some of the things we leave the classroom and search through the exhibit for.



On a table in assembly line fashion I set our a variety of fabrics and ribbons in a rainbow of colors. (I also included scissors as an option for parents to use if they pleased.) I tried to incorporate a variety of textures as well. Each workstation had an 9x12 piece of interfacing (you could use cardboard, poster board or whatever!), tacky glue and glue stick.



The children went through the line and picked out the pieces they wanted to use and placed them down. It was easiest to have adult squeeze glue all over interfacing and have child place fabric pieces on top.



You will need:
-Interfacing or cardboard
-fabrics (precut to small shapes)
-ribbons
-glue
-scissors

So much fun! Here are some of our finished fabric collages!