Author Study: Robert Munsch

 

I'm changing up long range planning this year and focusing my monthly themes around author studies, instead of specific topics.  That gives me more flexibility to account for the interests and skills of a wide age range of children (age 1 thru 7) while still incorporating a rich variety of literature into our activities.  February has been all about Robert Munsch.  After reading "The Paper Bag Princess", we decided to make our own paper bag characters.

 

I pulled out some brown paper bags, scissors, glue and open ended craft materials, and let the children create without specific direction.  They each had their own different take on project, but using popsicle sticks as arms and legs became a popular idea.

Some of the children asked for self-portraits of themselves to glue to their paper bags, so we cut them out of photographs.

Robert Munsch's books are always rich in fun and exciting details.  After reading his story, "Purple, Green and Yellow", my oldest daughter wanted to paint fingernails.  Since most of the children in care are boys, I decided we would do a more inclusive color activity.  We decided to pull out the paint supplies, and experiment with different methods of painting and mixing color. 

Instead of just using paintbrushes, the children were able to explore making art with paper tubes, Q-tips and cotton balls.

They really enjoyed the change in painting tool, and the results were both beautiful and colorful!

Nuts For Squirrels

I decided to change the way I do thematic planning this year.  Instead of picking a specific theme (say...bugs) I'm going to plan around a certain author or type of book.  I'm hoping that by doing this, I can integrate more literature rich activities into my planning, and incorporate learning opportunities that fit the wide spectrum of ages and abilities.  So to start out the new year, the author I picked was Melanie Watt, with a specific focus on her Scaredy Squirrel series (though we did spend time with the rest of her phenomenal books).

Scaredy Squirrel gave me some great opportunities to incorporate open ended crafts and natural resources.

This is the children working on their squirrel mural.  I didn't anticipate how much they would enjoy this crafting experience, but we spent an entire afternoon immersed in this creative opportunity.

I decided to broaden the activity for the younger children by working on some fine motor skills - I let them experiment with scissor cutting.  To do this, I sat one-on-one with each child in turn, and let them choose to cut their picture as they wished (after some modelling and guidance).  They were so focused, and handled the scissors with great care.  It was a huge success!

In the end, the murals turned out more beautiful than I could have ever imagined!

The Perfect Square

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've discovered a new favorite author - Michael Hall. He's written some really good books using shapes for the story and art. This one, The Perfect Square, inspired an art project.

The book is all about a perfect square that's perfectly happy the way he is. But each day of the week, something happens to him, and he has to adapt and make himself into something new. So on Monday, he's cut and poked full of holes, so he turns into a burbling fountain. On Friday, he's ripped and crumbled, so he turns himself into a majestic mountain, etc.

The kids keep bringing me this book to read, so I thought, why don't we try a perfect square craft?

I got out the scissors and glue, hole punch and construction paper. Then I brought out some old safari themed origami squares. The kids got to rip and shred and cut and poke them full of holes, and make their own perfect square scenes.

I find it's way more interactive when I get involved with making the same crafts they do. It opens up the chance for conversation about the activities, and increases the attention span and willingness to participate of the children, particularly the younger ones. So I re-created some of the scenes from the book.

I also kept the book handy on the table, so the children could flip through the pages for inspiration.

When it was finished, we had a fabulous display for our art wall!