Tag Archives: art

Terrific tyre treads and painty patterns in the puddles

In our gross motor art area in the garden we have been exploring art on a large scale.  So far we have used large brushes, mops, spray bottles and plungers. Today however we decided to make our art even bigger.

We decided to use the tyres to roll in the paint and see the patterns it made. We popped on our wellies and puddlesuits due to the rain showers we had this morning, and got to work creating our massive masterpiece.

It was interesting to see the different patterns the tyre made depending on where it rolled.

We had long tread marks and circles prints where it landed.

Because of the rain our patterns washed away quickly so we just had to make more.

It was a bit tricky at first to roll the tyre all the way across on our own ,we problem solved and thought,  how about making it a team effort.

So we worked together to roll the tyres back and forward to each other.  Team work made the art work!

We investigated who could push it the furthest and what kind of patterns did we make if we pushed it faster or slower.

We had so much fun with this large scale art outdoor experience. It was funny when the tyre splatted in the paint in the middle.

We tried different colours of powder paint to see which colours made the best pattern.

The rain got a little heavy at one point, but it mixed in with the powder paint and made our paint mix together and create much more paint puddles to roll our tyre into.

This was a great experience for our children of all ages to expand and inspire their creative designs, while also developing their gross motor skills.

We had our gross motor art tools beside us incase any one wanted to choose a different way to create art, but the tyre was the winner today.

Cart Mill Clay Creations!

In Cart Mill, we’re always seeking ways to spark imagination and connect children with the wonders of the outdoors. An activity that achieves both is the art of flower pressing in clay. This isn’t just an activity; it’s a celebration of nature’s beauty and the boundless creativity of our children.

With clay, rolling pins, colorful flowers, and herbs, our little artists began creating their works of art. First, they rolled the clay using the rolling pins to create a canvas for their art. Using the rolling pins and their hands to flatten the clay is a fun way to develop fine and gross motor skills. Next, they selected flowers and herbs to press onto the clay, leaving beautiful imprints that capture the essence of the world around them.

Some of the children have been using their problem-solving skills by figuring out how to get the flowers to stand up. They worked together and discovered they needed to pile the clay around the stem to make it stand straight. Well done!

The children had the opportunity to explore their senses by discussing how the clay felt. We also had a smell of the herbs and flowers. Below are some comments.

“It smells like my toothpaste.”

“It smells green.”

“The clay is really soft.”

“It’s a bit sticky.”

Now, we let the clay masterpieces dry, and voila! We have fantastic keepsakes that showcase not just the creativity of the Cart Mill children but also the wonders of nature.

Stay tuned for delightful surprise! These fantastic creations will be showcased in the welcome area later this week. 😀

UNCRC ARTICLES

Article 28: Education

Article 13: Freedom of expression

Today We Were Puffy Painting 🎨

Today the children decided they would like to try making puffy paint which was a lovely sensory experience for them. Puffy paint is unique because it dries raised with a three dimensional texture. Working with the puffy paint requires a level of precision and control, helping improve their fine motor skills. The children were able to squeeze, spread, mix and decorate using their hand eye coordination. The children were loved this arty experience. The ingredients we used were.

PVA glue, shaving foam and paint.

“I’m making my puffy paint pink so I’m only putting a little red in”


“I’m making mine yellow, I’m only putting a little glue in”


“It feels like slime, and is so soft” Mmm the shaving foam smells nice”

“I’m going to paint a rainbow with all the colours I made” “I need to mix everything in”

Some of the children enjoyed mark making in the foam. “It’s wet and sticky” “ look at my hand prints they are blue”  “ I wrote an A in the foam because it’s at the start of my name”

We are going to look at other types of paint we can make, who knows what we will come up with!

How do we make paint move?

Today we have been combining gross motor art with science to learn how to make paint move without using a brush.

“We can pour it.” “It needs to be high up.”

The children had some great ideas so got straight to work! We mixed up the paint and found some pipes to roll it down. One of the children noticed his pipe was sitting further out so he was sure his paint would go further.


The blue paint went further than the yellow! On examination we found the yellow paint was thicker than the blue so we then tried adding more water to the paint. It went much further than the first attempt!

The next pair decided to experiment with altering the height of the pipes to see if that would make the paint travel further.

“I’m putting it on the highest one!”

We found that the paint travelled faster down the pipe when it was higher and it did make it go further.

The next challenge was to direct the paint on to the paper to create a long distance artwork. We had to use all of the prior learning to make sure we mixed the paint to the right consistency, we had to make sure the pipes were at the right height and we had to aim in the right direction. Very tricky!

The children all enjoyed predicting what would happen each time we changed a variable and then testing the theory. A beautiful crossover of science and art!

Article 29- you have the right to education which tries to develop your personality and abilities as much as possible.

Inspirational Artists 👩‍🎨🧑‍🎨

This week in the Studio Room the children have been investigating the art styles of the Spanish artist, Antoni Gaudi. He had an ostentatious style of mosaics called “Trencar”. This means “to break”. Gaudi  created mosaic forms by putting together broken ceramic tiles, plates and cups.

We used some different types and textures of materials such as felt, foam, tissue paper and shiny paper. We started with some pre-cut shapes to start us off. But we soon got adventurous and used our scissor skills to create our own shapes.

We created our own “trencar” using these shapes to bring our creations to life.


Some of our older children could write their name on their finished art works.


Then pop them into the drying rack, to dry the glue.

We had a cup that was made in the style of Gaudi in our curiosity cube this week to show our children some 3D Art.

We were able to look at the mosaics pattern on the cup. We looked at how the lizard was made up of different shapes and colours.
We used the cup for inspiration to create our own still life drawings.

We have had a very creative, inspirational week in our Studio, learning about Gaudi and his “Trencar” art style.
here is some of our own interpretations.
    

I wonder what artist will inspire us next week……

Having a splashing time in the Studio

We had a special donation of some huge cardboard to our Studio Room. Our children enjoy using cardboard for lots of creative creations in our Junk model area. But today we had a idea of something else we could use the large cardboard for.

Splash painting.
There was different bottles, syringes, droppers and different colours of paints. It was very exciting picking which one we were going to use.

Because it was such a big piece of cardboard we could even sit in the middle to create our art work.

 

 

 

 

 

We mixed a little bit of paint and water to help our paint splat, spray, drop and squeeze.

We are very independent in our Studio Room and can pick and put on our own paint aprons when we want to paint or get messy.

We loved how far we could squeeze and spray the paint that was inside the syringe.

Good job our cardboard was so big.

It was interesting watching all the colour mix together to see what different colours we created.

We were learning different techniques of making art by using our spay bottles, droppers and syringes to mark make in creative ways.

We think it looks really nice. We all worked really hard together creating our large scale art.
We really did have a splashing time.

Getting Creative with clay using sea shells 🐚 🐚

Today in the Studio room We have been sharing stories of summer, our holidays together and the fun days we have had with our families at the beach. 🐚  😎 ☀️
We have made sand castles, splashed in the sea, and when digging in the sand or looking in rock pools we have found and made sea shell collections. We looked at some shells we have in our nursery and discussed the different shapes, sizes and colours they were.

“This one’s got a crab in it” 🦀

 

“It feels smooth”

“This is a big flat one” 

“This one is bumpy”

“This one is round and bumpy “🐚

“ we can hear the sea in it”

First we made a round ball shape by rolling the cold sticky clay in our hands. We then pressed it down to make a flat shape before pressing our shells on to the clay to make some beautiful prints and patterns.
We found by pressing the shells into the clay we could make our own fossils!

Creating art with clay and shells gave the children endless ways to get creative and explore different textures through nature.

Clay also stimulates the children’s curiosity and imagination whilst exercising their fine motor skills when rolling, pressing and moulding.

We sat our clay shells  aside to dry out before we painted  them to make some colourful decorations for our nursery and home gardens.

“ I am going to paint mine blue and white”

“ I want to put on lots of colours on mine”

” I am going to put on lots of glitter on mine”

The children express and developed there creative skills and strengthen there fingers and hands and arm muscles.

What can you make at home using your sea shell collection? Let us know how you can be creative ! 🐚 🐚 🐚 

 

 

 

🍦🍧😎 Cool Fridays 😎🍧🍦

🌞☀️🌞☀️🌞☀️🌞☀️🌞☀️🌞☀️🌞☀️🌞☀️🌞☀️🌞☀️🌞☀️

After a long hot week we cooled off today with some tasty treats!

We talked together about different ways we cooled ourselves down when the weather was really warm and made us feel really hot!
There were so many great ideas!

“I play water fights”

“I drink lots of water”

“I use sun cream and I wear a hat”

“I eat ice cream and ice poles”

”My favourite is to eat ice lollies”

We all agreed that one of the best ways to cool down was to eat ice cream or ice lollies! This gave us an idea… to make our own ice cream shop where we could sell all sorts of ice creams, ice lollies, milk shakes and ice poles.

We used a selection of craft materials to make our icy treats and our ice cream shop.

We then each took turns to be the shop keeper or be the customer.
Which cool treat would be your favourite?
”I like a strawberry cone and sauce”

”mmmmm mint choc chip is the best”

“I like to lick the ice lollies”

To finish our day we made it real – we had some icy treats at snack time! What a great way to end our hot and busy week, before the rain came! 😎

Hopefully Mr Sun will be back soon! 🌞

🌞☀️🌞☀️🌞☀️🌞☀️🌞☀️🌞☀️🌞☀️🌞☀️🌞☀️🌞☀️🌞☀️

Creating Silhouettes

Today the children are  having fun learning about silhouettes “a shape or outline in a block colour with no detail but you can still recognise what it is”. The children had a look at some silhouettes on the board and then we were ready to create our own.
We chose one of the children to draw around . “Look how big I am”.  The children were very careful using the scissors to cut around our silhouette.  Some of the children wanted to draw around their own hands to make silhouettes. We then used black paint to cover our silhouette. The children worked very well together choosing different parts of the body to paint and sharing  the brushes and paint.

We then played a great guessing game using animal silhouettes . What do you think it is? “ a snake.” We learned new words today and had great conversations about body parts, animals and silhouettes. We are going to continue looking at silhouettes – look out for our silhouette creations!

Pumpkin 🎃 Fun

The children are very excited as it’s nearly Halloween 👻. Today we listened to a story about Pumpkin Jack, a boy who had a Halloween pumpkin. After Halloween he put the pumpkin in the garden and over time the pumpkin began to rot away into the ground. The following year he watched a stalk grow from the ground and the leaves got bigger and bigger and a new pumpkin grew and was ready to use again for another Halloween.

The children had a look at our own pumpkins. We had different sizes, shapes and colours. We discussed how some were heavier than others, the smaller ones were bumpy and rough and the bigger ones were smooth and soft. The pumpkins felt cold and smelled like “pumpkins and witches“.

The children then designed their own pumpkin pictures This helped develop their creativity and fine motor skills using our art resources. They were able to choose their own art materials to create great pumpkin pictures. Well done.

Next week we are going to open the pumpkins and look inside!!!!. What do you think we will discover?