Our First Divergent Art

Well, our year has gotten off to a great start! I have 20 kiddos which is something different for me since I've had upwards of 25 for as long as I can remember. It's definitely different this year as 15 of those kiddos are boys! I'm observing all this new phenomena like when you say sit on the carpet we can't just sit, no, boys have to roll and slide and wrestle and fly like Superman. I've never before in all my career had to demonstrate how to sit.on.the.carpet. We've been doing things like our JustDance Kids videos and yoga to try and channel all the energy but let's just say it's been a bit exhausting these first 2 weeks. :)

I've written about divergent art before. It's when you give the kids a shape and ask them to turn it into something. It's an exercise in creativity that is really harder for them than it sounds. I start with an "s" shape. I model for them using a circle-here we can make a snowman, or a face, or a car wheel and then draw the picture around it. Then I give the students their s-shape and ask them to create something with it. Some make snakes, some make a picture next to the S, I even had one student turn the paper over and draw on the back. I also had one turn it into a bow and arrow which I thought was very impressive. So when we were done I had them share what they made. There are so many snowmen because that was one of the things we demonstrated with the circle shape. Some of them also obviously just copied off one another. The more we do this throughout the year, the more creative they get with their ideas. This was our first try:

My favorite one!