Things for Thursday Winter Art Project

I run a daycare/preschool. With that comes a lot of really fun projects. Who doesn't love coloring, reading, and playing all day? I figure I can show you guys some fun things I'm doing with the preschool. These things are so easily adapted to children of all ages. Many times I will be making something with the 3 year olds, when my 2 older kids get out of school. My kids will just join in. They are so used to this happening that they immediately modify it to fit their liking. I love looking through my daycare books, preschool book, and perusing the internet to find fun things to do. Here is what I am thinking of doing for this weeks Things for Thursdays. I love this woman's art projects as they seem a bit different than the usual preschool projects you can find out there. I also love her descriptions of the painting techniques! I have an artist in my family and so this site is awesome for helping her expand her horizons! http://www.artprojectsforkids.org/2009/01/jim-dine-multi-media-hearts.html I am not doing Valentine's Day projects with the preschool quite yet, so I will be doing it with a Winter theme instead of Valentine's Day Theme.
I made 3 circles on a piece of paper (to make a snowman). Then, the kids colored the shapes in, with crayons. It's important to push hard and cover as much as you can. Color the object any way you want. Then, watercolor over the picture. The kids love to see how the colored parts resist the water color paint. After that dries spread rubber cement of the paper. This step is going to seal in the color anywhere you put the rubber cement. So, don't cover the whole page, make brush strokes or whatever you want. Again, you have to let it dry after this step. Then, water color over the whole page again, using a different color of paint. It is fun to see the places where there was rubber cement, completely resisting the last water color paint, yet it keeps the first colors on!
Here is our final project! I will use this technique again. It was easy for even the 2 year old to be able to do, yet kept the almost 5 year old interested too!
Rebecca