Ongoing Investigation:  Painting Techniques

Over the past several weeks, we have been creating our own representations of a sponge painting that the children were very interested in. (Shown below)

 The children thought we should use circle-shaped sponges and start with blue paint.

“I was squashing!” – Celine

 

The children began to use vocabulary such as squashing, squeezing, scraping, wiping, spreading, etc. when referring to their sponge paintings.  They used the artist’s painting a reference to see what color we would need next.  The children decided that we needed to use red paint next.  

 

“Look!  I’m using red”, Isabel said as she began to paint red circles on top of her blue circles she painted before.

We let the paint dry each time before we applied the next paint color.  The children decided we would need yellow paint next.

 

Rayan used the palm of his hand to push his sponge down in order to get yellow paint on his paper.

 

Through this whole process, I noticed that the children loved to get their hands covered in paint.  They would squeeze the sponges so that the paint would get all over their hands.

 

“Look at my hands!  They’re blue!”  -Chawki

 

The children strengthened their fine motor skills while they used the sponges to paint.  They also learned how to create a plan and follow through to the end of the plan.  They used creative expression when they made their own representations of the sponge painting.

Since I noticed the children are interested in covering their hands with paint, I decided that we should explore finger painting next.  We will discuss what types of ways we can use our fingers to paint and what kinds of designs we can make.