Welcome back! We hope you had a great weekend. It looks like it will be a cooler, wet week. Here are some invitations for preschoolers today.
Fine Motor/Design Invitation: Designing with cool hues
Sometimes when we limit the color palette for design work, interesting things happen. What will your child create in cool colors today? You could also offer this invitation in warm colors, or black and white. Gather a variety of materials in whatever colors you have selected, your child can help you sort them. Put out a piece of paper to use as a background, or an empty frame (without glass).
This open-ended exploration of materials offers children an avenue for creative expression, fine motor work, and cognitive skill-building.
Art Invitation: Monochromatic materials
Building on the design work, offer your child a selection of art materials (colored pencils, markers, pastels, chalk, stamps, etc.) in one color. It could be black (a classic place to start), your child’s favorite color, or something else. Ask your child what they can make using only that color on white paper.
This invitation is a way for children to really delve deeply into the possibilities of a single color. What will they create? How will limiting the color affect what your child creates? What differences will they notice in shade and intensity between the different materials? You could make a rainbow of these pieces over several days.
Language/Literacy Invitation: When Pigasso Met Mootisse by Nina Laden
Thinking about color and color palettes made us think about how some Reggio-inspired schools study artists and illustrators with preschoolers. We cannot physically go to any museums at the moment, but here is a link to 17 museum virtual tours, or you can look at some of the Nasher Museum’s exhibits online.
We enjoyed this video of Eric Close reading Nina Laden’s book When Pigasso Met Mootisse. It nicely contrasts the two artists styles. Maybe you can find a Picasso or Matisse in one of the museum virtual tours!