Art Project: Sculptures from Clay and found Nature Material

Working with clay is a tactile experience that seems to be an essential part of a child's development. Making sculptures out of clay and found objects from nature is a great way to offer open-ended play and encourage creativity. This project also allow, for easy set-up in the art room,  is cost effective, and is also wildly popular with children. They work for an art class setting, the Godly Play classroom, and at home.

All you need is:

- clay (I use the air drying variety)

-  glue

- a few objects from nature, such as leaves, sticks, rocks, moss, etc.

- a little imagination (and children have no lack this!)

Sometimes we go to the park and find the nature treasures ourselves  . . . 

And other times I bring nature material and set it out on a tray to save time . . . 

The children then begin to sculpt, and usually one does not have to give them any suggestions of what to make. They flow with their imaginations and come up with the most amazing things. Sometimes, at Easter I add eggshells or cress seeds to the mix, as in the picture below.

It is important to have glue available and show the children how to glue pieces together at the "joints", so that they do not fall apart when drying. In the picture below, we glued the figure's head to the body as well as the walnut and body to the bark. 

Isn't it amazing what children come up with to create?

 . . . 

Ein lieblings und einfaches Kunstproject von mir besteht daraus, Skulpturen aus Ton und Naturmaterial zu gestalten. Man braucht dafür nur den Ton, Naturmaterial und Kleber. Die Kinder denken dann super kreative Sachen aus. 

Manchmal gehen wir draußen und sammeln die Naturschätze selber und manchmal bringe ich sie um Zeit zu sparen. Wichtig ist den Kindern zu zeigen, an welchen Stellen den Bastelleim benutzt werden soll, damit nichts beim Austrocknen kaputt geht. 

Die Ergebnisse sind echt wunderschön!


Linked to Friday's Nature Table at The Magic Onions

and Eco Kids' Tuesday at Like Mama-Like Daughter and Organic Aspirations

and Waldorf Wednesday at Seasons of Joy

Montessori Cards: Stations of the Cross & Stations of the Resurrection

I want to share a wonderful, free resource with you that I found last year through another blog. On our nature table, we have the Stations of the Cross as 3-part Montessori cards, so that the kids can use them anytime they want. 

You can download them at a blog called The Bookworm here.

My son has especially enjoyed them, since he can already read. Here are some photos of him putting them in order and matching the captions with the pictures after breakfast on a leisurely Saturday morning.

The same site has the Stations of the Resurrection, also known as "The Way of Light", as well. You can download them here.

Stations of the Resurrection

After Easter we use the Stations of the Resurrection in our devotional times. I let the children use them to pick a story that they want to hear, and we either read it in the Bible or I simply tell them the story. 

I am so thankful for bloggers like The Bookworm who share their wonderful resources!

Art Project: Pastel and Glue Pysanky

If you follow this blog on a regular basis, then you know that I am a big fan of Pysanky, the ornate Ukrainian Easter Eggs. Though I love to make real ones with children, the time constraints of the Easter Club just don't allow for it. So I decided to introduce the kids in to them in a different medium: glue and chalk pastel.

This is a technique that I have seen on many art blogs, such as this post by That Artist Woman. Chalk pastels can be difficult for elementary-age students to work with, because it so easy to accidentally smear everything together and end up with a big mess. While I am a big fan of allowing children to explore different mediums without a lot of instruction, many children become seriously frustrated when using chalk pastels and left to their own devices. 

In this technique, the children draw a pattern and then trace it with glue. The glue, when dried, makes a natural boundary that helps keep the smearing in check. The American sites show pictures where the glue stands out from the page and is an extra element in the artwork. Unfortunately, our glue here in Berlin seems to have a different consistency than Elmer's, so it became transparent and dried a bit flatter. Nevertheless, it did help make these boundaries for the children to aid them with the chalk pastels. 

For this project you will need:

- colored paper

- chalk pastels

- glue

- pencil 

- ruler

- examples of symbols found on Pysanky (I found this page helpful.)

- a black permanent marker 

First, you have the children draw an egg shape and divide it into 8 sections, by drawing a vertical line down the middle and then a horizontal one.  Then you divide each of these four sections with a diagonal line. I encouraged the children to use a ruler. 

Then, I provided the children with some simple ideas for symbols that they could draw on their eggs. But, of course, I gave them full freedom to draw anything they wanted. 

The next step is to lightly sketch the symbols in each quadrant of the egg.

Next comes the fun part of tracing with the glue.

After the glue has dried, you color in each section with oil pastels. (We did this step a week later.) As a finishing touch, some of the finer details can be outline with a black permanent marker (such as a Sharpie).

The picture above and the eggs below are some of the examples of the children's artwork. Aren't they lovely?

. . . . . . . 

In der OsterAG haben wir "Pisanki" (ukrainische Ostereier) mit Bastelleim und Pastelkreide gemacht. Da Pastelkreide nicht gerade leicht für Kinder zu steuern ist, hat sich eine Methode in der Kunstpädagogik entwickelt, in der die Kinder zuerst das Bild mit Bastelleim umskizzen. Nachdem der Kleber getrocknet wird, kann das Kind mit der Kreidepastellen in diesen "Kleber-Grenzen" leichter arbeiten honen das ganze zu verschmieren. Danach kann man ein schwarzes Edding nehmen um Details nachzuskizzen.

Ich habe den Kindern Ideen gegeben, was für christliche Symbole sie zeichnen konnten, aber sie haben die Freiheit gehabt zu malen, was sie wollten. 

Die Kinder haben sich Mühe gegeben, und ich fand die Ergebnisse toll!

Linked to Friday's Nature Table at The Magic Onions

and Eco Kids' Tuesday at Like Mama-Like Daughter and Organic Aspirations

and Waldorf Wednesday at Seasons of Joy

Art Project: Wooden Easter Tree Decorations

This is one of the projects that we did in Easter Club this year. It was directly inspired by this post at April's Homemaking. April, who always has great ideas, sawed thin discs from her Christmas tree trunk and made them into ornaments for next year. 

In Germany, people make "Easter Trees" out of branches placed in a vase. (You can see one of ours here.) When I saw April's post, I immediately thought, "Oh, we could do that to make Easter Tree decorations!" 

Not having access to an electric saw, I then tried in vain to do it with a hand saw. I eventually gave up, but the idea stayed in my head. Later on, I asked my children's godfather, who is quite the handyman, if he perhaps had an electric saw. He did indeed have one and sawed beautiful discs from a plum tree branch at their summer house.

Here are the wooden discs . . . 

Then, I carefully screwed metal hooks into each disc.

At Easter Club, we made small "stands" out of modelling clay, so that the children could paint both sides with ease.

The ornaments drying . . . 

The last step was to tie ribbons on the ornaments. And here is the finished product ready to hang on our Easter Trees at home!

. . . 

Diesen Osterstrauss-Schmuck haben wir bei der OsterAG gemacht.

Wir liesen eine Ast vom Pflaumenbaum in Scheiben gesägt werden. Dann haben wir Schraubösen herein geschraubt. Dann haben die Kinder die Scheiben angemalt und eine Schleife daran zugebunden.

Voila! Etwas Buntes für den Osterstrauss!

Linked to  Eco Kids' Tuesday at Like Mama-Like Daughter and Organic Aspirations

Linked to Friday's Nature Table at The Magic Onions

Pysanky: Ukrainian Easter Eggs

We've started making "Pysanky", the Ukrainian Easter Eggs made using a batik technique with beeswax, so that we can give them to friends at Easter. 

Here are several works in progress that I and my two
children are working on.

And here is one that I finished.

I learned to make Pysanky last year about this time. You can read about it here.

Then, I taught my two children, and you can read about their experience here.  Though it looks like a daunting process, children can do it provided that they have breaks in between colors. I leave my materials out the whole day, so that we can work on the eggs at our leisure. 

Information about where to get the "kistka" (writing tool), beeswax and non-toxic dyes are also in these articles.

Remember, Easter lasts for six weeks after Lent is over, so there is plenty of time to paint eggs and enjoy it. Easter is just too big to pack into one Sunday!

Linked to Montessori Monday at Living Montessori Now

and Eco Kids' Tuesday at Like Mama-Like Daughter and Organic Aspirations

and Waldorf Wednesday at Seasons of Joy

and Keep Calm Craft On at Frontier Dreams

Sketchy Sunday: Pets + Spring

We're joining the Artsy Ants again for Sketchy Sunday! The past two weeks haven't afforded us a lot of time for sketching with school, the Easter Club, a Serve the City project and church. But here's what we've got . . . 

Last week's theme was "Spring", so I sketched this while waiting for my kids at an Abenteurerspielplatz ("Adventure Playground"). Unfortunately, it's still not looking very springy in Berlin.

and here is a sprouting seedling . . . 

As you can see, when I'm pinched for time, I stick to my favorite medium of black ink. But I did happen to have my watercolors out two weeks ago for the Parable of the Sower and sketched a cat for the "Pets" theme.

My son asked me to share this self-portrait with our hamster, Hammy, that he did a while back.

And my daughter handed in a sketch for "Telephone", which was the theme about a month ago.: ) She also exercised a little creative spelling in German.

If you like to sketch, please join us at the Artsy Ants! 

Easter Club 2013 Week 4

Wir liefen am Montag zur OsterAG im Schnee. Obwohl der Frühling nirgendwo zu spüren war, glaubten wir trotzdem, dass er kommt! We walked to Easter Club this week with snow on the ground. Though spring is nowhere is in sight, we have to believe it's coming! 

Unsere Geschichte diese Woche hatte ein ähnliches Thema. Sie ging um die zwei Emmaus-Jünger, die Jesu auf dem Weg nach Hause von Jerusalem begegnen, aber ihn nicht sofort wahrnehmen. In ihrer Trauer, Zweifel und Verwirrung erkennen sie ihn nur wenn er das Brot und Wein mit ihnen teilt. Überglücklich beeilen sie sich wieder nach Jerusalem um allen davon zu erzählen. These thoughts paralleled our story this week, which was about the two disciples who meet Jesus on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection. In their grief, doubt and confusion, they don't immediately recognize him. Finally, after he has explained the events of the past few days in a way that they can understand, they recognize him as he breaks bread with them in Emmaus. Overjoyed, they hurry back to Jerusalem to let everyone know that they have seen the Risen Lord.

Die Kinder haben die Geschichte sehr gemocht, und das Kind unten im Foto erzählte aufgeregt, dass diese ihre lieblings Geschichte von allen war. Als ich nach dem lieblings Teil der Geschichte fragte, meinten viele, dass sie die Stelle, wo Jesus das Brot teilte, am liebsten mochten. Andere fanden's toll, dass Jesus auf dem Weg nicht sofort sagte, wer er wirklich war. The children loved this story, and the child below in the picture is excitedly telling us that this was her favorite story that she has heard in Easter Club. When asked what their favorite part of the story was, most everyone said that they liked the part about Jesus sharing bread with the two disciples, and also that Jesus did not immediately tell them his true identity. 

Ich habe auch gefragt, warum die Jünger Jesus nicht sofort erkannt haben. Manche meinten, Jesus anders ausgesehen habe. Ein Kind dachte, die 2 Jünger haben aus Trauer den Boden angeschaut und deswegen den Fremden nicht gerade in die Augen geguckt. Und andere meinten, sie waren einfach zu traurig Jesus wahrzunehmen. Ich habe daze eine Geschichte erzählt, wobei ich meinen verlorenen Schlüssel gesucht habe. Obwohl der Schlüssel gerade vor mir lag, habe ich aus Panik ihn übersehen.   I also asked the childen why they thought that the Emmaus disciples did not immediately know who Jesus was. Some thought that perhaps Jesus looked differently. One child mentioned that perhaps the two were looking down at the ground and not really paying attention to the stranger who had joined them. And others thought that maybe their sadness caused them to not see who he was. I told a story about how I couldn't find my keys once and was so panicked that I couldn't see them, even though they were right in front of my eyes.

Es gab die folgenden Angeboten in der Kreativphase:
Response Time included the following stations this week:

Wir haben Osterbaum-Schmuck angemalt! Die Kinder bekamen Scheiben vom Pflaumenbaum mit einem kleinem Haken zum Aufhängen. Sie haben dann kleine "Ständer" mit Knete gemacht, damit sie beiden Seiten malen konnten. Nachdem sie austrocknen, werden wir eine Schleife daran binden.  We painted Easter Tree decorations! The children were give discs cut from a plum tree branch with a hook on them. We used a tiny bit modeling clay to stand them up so that we could paint both sides. Once they dry we'll attach a ribbon to them so they can be hung from the Easter Tree branches. 

Osterbaum-Schmuck
Easter Tree decorations

Wir haben auch die letzten Bildern aus Wolle und Jutestoff fertig gemacht. Hier sitzen die Kinder mit Gabrielle, eine Mitarbeiterin von der Gemeinde, die und in der AG unterstützt. We finished up our pictures made from wool roving on burlap. Here the children are working with Gabrielle, who volunteers with our club. 

Die Kinder hatten auch die Möglichkeit Ton und Naturmaterial zu gestalten. Sie waren diese Woche besonders kreativ! The children also had the opportunity to create sculptures from air-drying clay and found nature materials. They were so creative!

Wir haben auch die "Pisanki" mit Pastelkreide fertig gemacht, und weiter bei der "Vater Unser" Station gearbeitet. We also finished up our Easter "Pysanky" with chalk pastels, and could work more at "The Lord's Prayer" station.

Und natürlich dürfte man die Geschichten genauer angucken! And, of course, there was the opportunity to explore the stories more!

Zum Fest diese Woche gab's eine Überraschung - Brownies! Melinda, die Co-Lehrerin, bäckt die besten Brownies der Welt! Our feast included a special treat - brownies! Melinda, my co-teacher, makes hands down the best brownies in the world, and the kids who have previously been in our clubs remember this!

Preparing for our feast together. 

Noch eine Woche! One more week to go!

Click here for Week 1, Week 2, and Week 3. 


Linked to Montessori Monday at Living Montessori Now

and Waldorf Wednesday at Seasons of Joy