World Elephant Day

Apparently today is World Elephant Day. Here's a post about elephants to celebrate!

A few years ago I let my 3rd graders paint like elephants and it was a lot of fun. Soon after I found out that my local zoo, the Topeka Zoo, occasionally paints with their elephants, Tembo and Sunda. Last month I was finally able to get my kids to the zoo at the right time to see the painting process.

The keepers helped one of the elephants hold the brush in her trunk while she moved it around on the canvas. There was an excited crowd watching and the elephants seemed to enjoy painting. Or at least they enjoyed the treats..... :)

The trip to the zoo reminded me that I wanted to let my 3 1/2 year old try painting like an elephant. The day before school started we finally did it! I taped a paintbrush to a paint stirrer, expecting him to hold the brush in his hand like my students did. That's not what my son had in mind! He stuck the stick in his mouth because he thought that was more elephant-like. He figured out how to manipulate the stick/brush to get the colors he wanted and to make shapes.

 At the end of the painting session, he decided to dip his nose in the paint, which I think is what he pictured all along when I asked if he wanted to paint like an elephant. I forgot to take a picture of the finished painting, but the nose smudges are definitely my favorite part.

It's fun to follow your kid's lead!

Painting with Nature

As an art teacher, one of the most natural ways to spend time with my toddler is by making art. This summer, we've been painting with some natural materials. After my youngest son was born in June, my 2 1/2 year old brought me a bouquet of flowers when my mom brought him to visit. We enjoyed the flowers once we came home and I thought it would be fun to paint with them before they totally dried up. 

We gathered our supplies- construction paper, acrylic craft paint in colors of my toddler's choice, tray for paint, paint brush, and flowers. I showed him how he could sort of stamp the blooms of the flowers or wipe the paint-dipped flowers across the paper like a paintbrush. 

He painted with the flowers for a bit then wanted to use his paintbrush and that was just fine. I think it's important to let the kid take the lead when you're making art!

When the paintings were done, he decided to "plant" the flowers in some empty containers. I love his imagination.

On another day, we painted with cypress branches. My brother cut down a tree at my parents' house and we were enjoying the soft branches. The weather wasn't quite as nice that day so we painted in the bath tub on our homemade paper!

Artist Shirt

I keep finding photos that I intended to post a loooong time ago. This is a shirt that I helped my toddler make during Youth Art Month. He loves painting. I like to let him choose a couple colors of acrylic craft paint and go to town. I bought a plain white t-shirt, used painters tape to mask off a square, and let my little guy paint whatever he wanted. When he was done, we peeled the tape off and I used some puff paint to make a swirly frame around the edges. The only bad thing is that I didn't realize how small  the shirt size ran so he could only comfortably wear it for a couple months. I think we'll have fun making more shirts in the future!