Visual Art at PS 307: Pre-K Cardboard Menagerie and Fabric and Button Collages

Pre-K 136. Omari's kangaroo on the top right is unpainted because he was absent on the painting day. It looks great the way it is though.

Pre-K Cardboard Menagerie

Pre-K artists constructed these adorable one-of-a kind animals by arranging and gluing together different shapes of cardboard. We looked at animals on the smartboard and noticed how we can look at the different parts of their bodies and determine what shape we think each one most resembles. Using this strategy of breaking a whole down into parts and then putting a whole together out of those parts, the children built animals by carefully choosing different rectangles, triangles and ovals to represent legs, tails, bodies, whiskers, wings, horns, kangaroo pouches, etc.

After constructing the animals, the children used their color mixing and painting abilities to really bring their animals to life. Children were only given red, yellow, blue, black and white paint so any colors other than those, such as pink, brown, light blue, etc. were mixed by the students themselves.

Pre-K 130

Pre-K 132

Pre-K Fabric and Button Collages
After having a read aloud of The Quilt Story written by Tony Johnston and illustrated Tomie dePaola for inspiration, Pre-K artists explored collage making with fabric, ribbons and buttons. This richly tactile activity strengthens fine motor skills and develops sensory understanding. Gluing fabric is very different than gluing paper because fabric acts differently that paper. Students discovered many different things they could do with the fabric such as folding it, layering it, looping and shaping ribbon. Gluing buttons requires using the right amount of glue for a heavier object. Some students created representational collages while others focused on exploring juxtapositions of color and shape.