Mat Man and The Mini Kinders

Since the first day of Kindergarten, Ms. Dowd has had an alphabet bag on the back of her chair.  She told everyone that the things in the bag are going to help us learn all about the alphabet.  We were very curious and couldn't wait to see what was inside.

One at a time, wooden pieces were pulled out of the bag.  A big line, a little line, a big curve and a little curve. We carefully looked at the pieces and then went to see if we could find any lines or curves around the school.

               
The next day we noticed that Ms. Dowd's alphabet bag had more things in it.  We sat in a circle and watched as more wooden pieces were pulled out of the bag.  Each piece was carefully placed on the floor to create Mat Man.

                      

We wanted to try to build him, so everyone was given a piece and waited for their turn to add their piece.

The following day, we used Mat Man's wooden pieces in a different way.  We used the pieces as tracers to help create our own version of Mat Man. 

It was a little tricky, but we practised using our helper hand to hold the piece firmly down, while the writing hand traced around the edges.

                                                                                                    Once we had traced and cut out the legs and arms and glued them to our heads, we realized that we needed to make hands.  Some of us traced our own hands, while others asked a friend to help.  It was a lot of work for our little fingers, but with some encouragement, everyone was able to make their own Mini Kinder.

After giving our fingers a little rest, we added some colourful footwear inspired by a cat named Pete.

                  

Check out our AWESOME Mat Man Drawings!  

Dot Day!

Every year in September, Dot Day is celebrated by millions of people internationally.  In the book, The Dot, by Peter Reynolds, a little girl sits with an empty piece of paper at the end of art class.  Her teachers suggests she make a single mark on the page and then sign it.  She does, and when she returns to art class the following week, she sees her paper framed in swirly gold!  The girl then decides that if she can make one dot, then she will try to make even better dots.  All you have to do is try and see where it takes you!

We started our day with doing Dot inspired discovery centers.

      
First, we explored with dominoes...

Then, we drew fancy dots and used a paper punch to make lots of dots.

     
We rolled dice and counted out pom poms to fill an ice cube tray.

  
And then we created beautiful dots with loose parts. (Glass beads, buttons, pennies, etc)

To help us really remember the story, we watched an animated version on the smartboard.

Here are the three different ways that we made our mark! 

1.  Crayon Dots

                

    We soaked old crayons in water, so the paper would easily peal off.  

                               

We broke the crayons into little pieces, which help make our fine motor muscles stronger!

 The broken pieces were put into muffin tins and into the oven for 10 minutes at 275 'C.  

After cooling down and re-hardening in the freezer, we were happily surprised with lots of smooth, rainbow dots!  Now, we can continue making our mark all year long with our special dot crayons!

   

2.  Tree Puck Dots

                                 

We made our tree pucks into beautiful, shiny dots using special metallic paint.  

                             

This mark was inspired by Wassily Kandinsky

Color Study. Squares with Concentric Circles, 1913

3.  Collaborative Watercolour Mural

We used bingo dabbers and watercolour paints to make lots and lots of dots.

    

       

What a fabulous dot day!!

This week, we learned the poem called "Too Many Kinds in the Tub." We used our collaborative dot paintings to create a rainbow coloured bath tub to display our self portraits that we sketched and then painted.                                               We are becoming true little artists!!!

                         

Morning Kinders

 

Afternoon Kinders

First Day Fun!

Our first day of kindergarten was FANTASTIC!  We made new friends, played with new toys, measured, coloured, dressed up, listened to stories and much much more.  We can't wait to do it all again on Monday!

            

Cast One

Cast Two