Mono prints and more art

All of us in the upstairs class went to the park for a little play outside even though it was such a cold day. We put our many layers of clothing on and then we put on our vests. Many of us are able to put our Ohana vests all by ourselves however our teachers have noticed that some of us are so big, we look like Michelin man!

We came inside and completed our individual panels for the one canvas. Margo started her second panel and we now have 15 panels completed on it which look really effective. In the library we read “There’s a hippopotamus on our roof eating cake” and we looked at the book with Christmas rhymes. In our circle time, we played a series of musical tunes and moved quickly and slowly to them, depending on their tempo. We then took a brush and danced and held it like a baton as some of us did yesterday. We looked at examples of Jackson Pollock’s work as well as a photo of him painting a huge canvas on the floor. He was splashing and pouring paint on to it. We were so excited to do our canvas and helped our teachers prepare the room for our painting activity. We rolled the plastic onto the table, put newspaper on the table and the floor. We helped our friends put their art smocks on and first used gold paint on our sample painting from yesterday. We painted to the rhythm and the mood of the music. We used spoons and brushes to flick the paint onto the canvas. Then we took the large canvas which was completely white and used red acrylic paint on it. We made the paint dance onto the canvas with brushes and spoons. This kind of painting can be messy and today Darren landed up with paint on his clothes. We had so much fun though.

 At the end of the day, the sounds that we focused on were “i” and “p”. We did drawing and writing words starting with these letters.

Downstairs, we are so busy with our imaginative play in the classroom, engaging with our friends and including everyone in our play. Part of our play today was placing almost all of the soft toys and puppets under the table and next to the table. Then we went under the table as well and continued playing there and talking to our friends. Some of us were dressed up in dress ups and some of us had handbags and scarves with us. Our teachers prepare things for us and we just want to play. It is a wonderful learning experience for all of us. We really appreciate that our teachers respect our needs at this time and in this way; and we value their presence in our play as well. They tend to stand back and observe us more and every now and then we go to them and say something to them, or include them in what we are doing! Today Eva told Shelley that one of our friends was spitting. Shelley told her to go and tell her friend how she feels about it. So she went to the friend and said: “Stop spitting. It is not very nice”. Then she went back to Shelley and told her that she spoke to the friend. Shelley said to Eva: “It is good that you said what you needed to. Thank you”.

So Shelley and Nanako prepared the second canvas for us with pieces of Perspex and some paint and texturing utensils. Initially when they called us to the table, we said that we didn’t want to come however, when we saw Shelley doing a sample of a mono print, we changed our minds. We put on our smocks all eager to paint the Perspex, make designs in the paint and then turn it over and put the imprint onto coloured tissue paper. When they are dry we will cut some pieces up and paste them onto the canvas.

 Nanako read us a book called “Kipper” and we sat with her listening to her sweet voice as she read the story. She is going to be away for 10 days as she is going to Ireland with her husband and her son, Luka.  We will miss her and wish her a safe journey and good luck to her husband, David, for the launch of his book there. We also sat at the small table and played a game called ‘Slides and Ladders’. You have to spin a clock, count the numbers as you move, go up the ladders and come down the slides. The goal is to get to 100.

Love always Shelley, Darren, Nanako, Ayaka, Christine, Goh, Liezel and Sabine.