Color inspiration!
This week The Gan-Garrett Jewish Preschool was full of activity as our friends created, combined, separated and appreciated color.
The art area is well stocked and available for open ended creativity and expression.
Children have the opportunity to direct their art experience in whatever way their imagination or creative inspiration takes them.
It can be calming or exciting. It is an experience the child can call all their own.
While our friends create their art, they are simultaneously developing their cognitive abilities.
They need to prepare, predict, plan and problem solve.
Brexton: I am done painting.
Morah Jillian: You are. How will you get your painting to the drying dry?
Brexton: It needs to get cut it down.
Morah Jillian: How can you make that happen?
Brexton: Scrissors.
Morah Katie: How are you going to create the different shades of colors Moshe?
Moshe: I have to add white. But if it gets too light then I have to add more color back, then white to match it.
Morah Eden: Why do you think Josie's hands are brown? We don't have brown paint.
Moshe: Because she mixed all the colors and smushed her hands together.
Eli: All those colors make brown.
It is fun to mix colors. We supplied the children with jars of paint for that experience.
Mix it, all or some, what will happen?
Evan: I will make brown when I mix them all!
Zoey: Red and blue and purple, really just make a purple.
While some friends were putting all the colors together, other friends were experimenting with chromatography, the separation of mixtures.
Friends used coffee filters to separate the pigments in markers to see how each color is created.
We began with gray and brown.
Morah Katie: What is happening?
Moshe: IT'S spreading out!
Zoey: I see blue.
Eli: It is looking like a rainbow.
Brexton: I see it is moving, it is getting more colors.
In addition to expanding a child's creativity, having a vibrant and active art area:
- increases communication through dialogue and the building of vocabulary
Moshe: I am going hide my painted rock at St. Helens. It is a volcano. It has a big hole. But when someone finds my hidden rock, it will make them so happy and surprised.
Evan: I am just painting my rock. The watercolors are drying real fast and looking really pale.
Evie: I am not making brown. I am separating the colors. 
Moshe created a "wish you well" card for his friend.
- improves eye hand coordination
Kenya is carefully watching where she places her scoop of paint.
Zoey is managing the easel paper as it slides down, while she cuts across it.
- refines fine motor skills
Moshe used a stencil and carefully colored in his own lines. He created a story to go with his art. The girl was swimming in the ocean.
Evie is refining her writing skills as she creates with the watercolor paints. She is training her fingers to hold a pencil as she hold the paintbrush for her strokes.
Hugo is creating structures as he refines his cutting skills.
Art provides children with opportunities to explore, observe and refine themselves in their environments.
Art gives children a way to tell their stories, create connections, and it is simply fun.
Please visit our former blog for past preschool experiences.
