Snack Portraits

I am a big fan of teaching kids to use different mediums for their creativity. We painted self-portraits and made collages of ourselves. Today we made tortilla self-portraits. With cream cheese as the glue and a variety of moderately healthy snack aisle staples (don't you just love those curly cheese curls for their hair? I had never seen those before!) --the kids made mirror images of themselves.

I love to see them use the same materials and come up with such different ideas!

This one actually kind of looks like him.

I think this guy gave himself a beard and moustache for the extra pretzels! :)

A Balloon for Isabel-Critical Thinking

I found this cute little story about a porcupine who has a bunch of friends at graduation with balloons but her teacher won't let her have one because...well, as her teacher puts it: quills + balloon=trouble. She tries different ways to cover her quills then comes up with a creative way the teacher can't resist.

I asked my kiddos to come up with another way Isabel could have gotten her balloon. Most of them talked about being sweet to the teacher...hmmm, does that really work? But some came up with some interesting ideas. Most of all, I think the activity made them think a little bit-I think I saw some smoke coming out of their ears! :)

Multiple Perspectives....A Beginning

I've written before how hard the concept of multiple perspective is to a young child. My theory is that kids in general are very self-centered--you should see them walk down a hall in total disregard anyone else is already there. It's hard for them to begin to think about life in someone or something else's shoes. I do think it's a great activity to teach empathy in kids not to mention voice when it comes to their writing.

This year I used the story Baby Shoes. It's a fun, rhythmic, lyrical tale of a toddler with a brand-new pair of shoes; but they don't remain in pristine condition very long. He takes them through all the colors of the rainbow-grass, mud, chalk, etc. I asked the kids to write from the perspective of the shoes.

I feel funny.

I feel colorful.

I would feel sad.

If I would be the baby shoes, I feel happy.

The Wonderful Happens

I love the book The Wonderful Happens because kids, especially the young ones don't really think about where things come from. Bread comes from a store, chocolate comes from a wrapper, milk comes from a carton--they don't really understand the processes involved in making all those things happen. We read the story this week and I asked the kids to illustrate something they thought was wonderful but didn't really know where it came from. I'm still working with them on coming up with creative thoughts-many took some of the ones from the story, but I thought they came up with some cool things.