Winter!
Week One: Snowflakes
With snow outside and the winter chill making an appearance this week, we explored the beauty and individuality of snowflakes in our first week of term. Children could create their own snowflakes amongst our snow using beads threaded onto pipe cleaners. They could also find the winter animals camouflaged in the white rice, making little homes for them. Snowflakes were painted using the wax resist watercolour painting method as well as snowflake stencils. Warm winter hats were designed using paint sticks, tape, stickers and cotton wool, and multiple paper snowflakes were cut and displayed around the room, creating a beautiful winter wonderland.
Week Two: Winter Trees
This week, we continued to explore the season of winter and focused particularly on winter trees and winter nights. The children could create 3D black and white winter trees using a variety of tools including oil pastels, pens, paint sticks and wax crayons to decorate the trees then use paper punchers with newspaper and recycled box tops to cut out additional leaves. Chalks were available on our other making table to create the effect of lights in the black sky, with white paint used to show stars. Winter animals were frozen in ice in one tuff tray and the ice could be painted in a range of colours to match the lights in the water. In our other tuff tray, playdough was moulded with pipe cleaners, coloured pasta and winter foliage to make trees and birds’ nests.
Week Three: Bird Week
With the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch taking place this week, our focus was all about birds. We shared bird identification books and talked about the birds we often see near our homes. Then the children could choose their own bird to make using a concertina technique to create the body of the bird. They could also create their very own pair of binoculars to take home with them for some bird-spotting. One tuff tray was all about goldfinches and panning for gold in the sand and the other was for bird next making and digging for bird food. Then we all became birds with scarf wings when we read the book ‘A Busy Day for Birds’!
Week Four: Ducks
Autumn is a busy time for squirrels! In one of our tuff trays, we had acorns and other autumnal riches for the squirrels to find then hide again amongst the green rice and mini wooden trunks. Squirrel dreys (nests) could also be created from leaves, feathers, sticks, moss and pine cones, with mini boxes decorated for squirrel homes. Large acorn collages were made from recycled wallpaper, cellophane and threaded wool, and mini squirrel puppet families were created from brown paper bags, tape, stickers and fluffy fur for thick, bushy tails.
Week Five: Winter Flowers
With snowdrops making their first appearance this week heralding spring’s imminent arrival, children could make their very own snowdrop crowns using different shades of green card, paint sticks and stampers, and flower cutters. They also had flower stencils to use to decorate paper plates, which the children then filled with pasta and embellished with ribbon to create pretty flower shaker instruments. Winter flowers potions could be poured and mixed in one tuff tray and winter animals could be found hiding in the oats in the other.
All our upcoming Preschool and Baby Art and Music classes are ready to book!
Now taking bookings for next term
Preschool and Baby Art Classes now open for booking – February/March
Create and Play: Mon & Wed 11am, Tues & Fri 9 30am and 11am
Baby Sensory Play and Move: Thur at 11am
Music and Move: Thur at 9 30am
Please click here to see the class timetable for more details.
