We opened our last Mother Goose Time Box. I'm sad.
It's appropriate that the theme for this box is Superheroes. MGT has been my superhero for two years now. (Was that a bit cheesy?? It's true.)
We jumped to the Reuse day because I saw wax sticks in the bag and saw that the art lesson was about upcycling and I had to do it.
*But first we took out the manipulatives for the month and explored. They are letter magnets and magnetic sticks.
And I looked at the CD for the month and felt sad.
We talked about recycling and upcycling and why it's so good and necessary to do those things. We connected it to their own real life experience when we discussed how I love to upcycle things such as my grandmother's desk.
We talked about upcycled art and how beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
I passed out the wax sticks and cups and glue and had them start their upcycled art.
Meanwhile, I looked down at the desk and thought about how I was going to miss THIS. All of this beautiful curriculum and art materials strewn across our table. What precious memories we've made like this.
They began to create.
The child who doesn't tend to do art for more than five minutes created for a long time (Strong B) and the child who is usually so even-keeled was tired and a little frustrated (Tiny B). It's good to be frustrated sometimes.
Tiny B said, "But his art is going to be more beautiful than mine." So we talked about that and came up with examples of how I think some things are beautiful, such as the desert, and some people don't think the desert is beautiful.
Strong B's wax sticks didn't hold as well as he'd like. So he went on to tracing shapes with the sticks. Tiny B used his leftover sticks to change her upcycled art.
I asked them what they learned from this lesson. Tiny B learned that "all art is not perfect" and Strong B said that "people see art different." I love this.
And I give you "Glow in the Dark Lipstick Crab!"
I made sure to bring it to her attention that she was initially so frustrated with this project, but that she persevered and made a beautiful creation. And Strong B did too.
*I receive Mother Goose Time curriculum in exchange for sharing of experiences, resulting from our personal use. All opinions/thoughts are my own and are in no way influenced by others.