Sculpture day fun

An interesting mix of play dough, tin foil cruppling, plaster - MESS!!!, and ice sculptures. I spent all week trying to freeze ice outside but had no luck at all, did anyone know that it isn't freezing outside? So I managed to get some smaller sizes of colored ice frozen and put the ice and salt theory to the test. It worked kind of. I think maybe those experiments work better when it is outside with still freezing conditions? In the end we had a lot of colored fingers!
I also thought that by putting plaster in zip lock bags and molding inside the bag would be awesome for mess and for those kids that do not like the feeling of mucky stuff between their fingers. BUT my plaster mixing techniques are not the best and well majority agreed that paper plates, plaster, and sticking things inside worked better.
Play dough was a hit as always. Who doesn't love playdough?
I also had a table filled with different things that the kids could stick into a flower arranging foam. That was a pretty big hit with the kids. The am group stuffed their foam blocks with as much as they could. The pm kids cut their blocks up with scissors and made animals out of them. Very cool.
I tried a few other ideas that were just interesting to see what would happen. Thanks again to everyone for coming out and sculpting! Hope to see you next week for some more silly fun!

Big thanks to all parents!

Dear Becky: Thank you very much for your generous donation to the No. 6 Mine Heritage Park. The money has
been placed in the park account and earmarked for playground equipment as requested. As we are a volunteer group working under the supervision of the Village of Cumberland any capital projects or expenditures must be pre-approved by the Village before they are purchased and placed in the park. I had just submitted a list of projects for the new budget year before receiving your donation. However at our committee meeting tomorrow we will bring up the topic of new playground equipment and then hopefully submit a proposal to the Village for their approval.
As we discussed before the park is increasingly being used by more parents and their younger children and some new playground equipment would certainly prove exciting for the children.
I will keep you posted as to our progress......and once again many thanks for your assistance.

I will also put your idea of a Sunday afternoon children's concert on the agenda. Personally this shouldn't be a problem as you would just go through the regular booking procedure with the Village office as the other user groups currently do.

Sincerely: Ron Bannerman
Chair: No. 6 Mine Heritage Committee

All kinds of brushes

This week we explored different types of paint brushes. We tried, feathers, string, cars, actual paint brushes, rollers, sticky hands, and straws. The tip of the ice berg as far as what you can use to paint with. We also explored black and white paint with black and white paper. It was a busy class and the smocks sure came in handy with all the paint flying around!!!

This week coming is the wonderful world of SCULPTURE!!! I am very excited for this class, we are going to build things, paste things, mold things and arrange things. It will be a busy morning, I am, as always, looking forward to it!

An update on money raised for the Miners Park thus far is $43 dollars!! That makes $203 to date.
Thanks everyone and hope to see you this week.
Becky & Iyla

Finger painting & Textures

Finger painting was, as always, fun and messy!! This time around we had combs to run through the paint which made some interesting designs. It worked especially well with the soapy paint, a favorite with the kids. (Check out the recipes section to make it yourself at home.) This time for the gritty paint I used sugar instead of salt...this made the paint drying process sticky and it never dried. So sorry to the parents that left those particular paintings behind, I just couldn't store them. We had some great finger painting murals that the whole class worked on. I loved the way the colors mixed and created new colors, they were so vibrant! We also added some textured paper in the mix, this was an interesting experiment which lasted only seconds for most children.
Sorry to everyone that it has taken me so long getting these photos posted this week, we had abit of computer trouble.

As for this week's theme / topic... DIFFERENT KINDS OF PAINT BRUSHES!!!
This class is usually quite messy and very fun! Since I have art smocks now I thought a messy class would be perfect to put them to the test! Look forward to seeing all of you tomorrow.
Becky & Iyla

Textures & Fingers

This week we are going to explore painting and drawing with our fingers...FINGERPAINTING!!! We are also going to explore different textures as we paint with our fingers. There will be several paint stations set up, so wear your painting clothes!! We will also explore 'drawing in the sand' with our fingers. This class the children will experience textures though touch and basic color theory - yellow and blue make green. We look forward to seeing all of you.
Becky and Iyla

ICE and SNOW!

Creative Thursday mornings are back AND Creative Exploration is also offering Creative afternoons for morning preschoolers and kindergardeners. We had a great turn out in the am, thanks to everyone that came out to explore! It was great to see some familiar faces and to meet some new ones.
Our winter theme went well, the kids loved the snow painting!! Alittle slippery but looked delicious! I painted some blue and wanted to eat it, it reminded me of snow cones...yum!
The ice cube paintings were so interesting...the kool aid one was a learning curve for all. I kept the paintings left behind and they look so great!
See you all next week
Becky and Iyla

Round 2!

In celebration of our winter weather we have been having this year...I thought we would explore a winter theme! I will bring hot chocolate for the kids, as well as, the regular coffee and tea for the parents.

We are going to paint snow sculptures, indoors - don't worry, and explore 3 interesting ice cube painting techniques! Don't worry the heat will be on!

I am looking forward to seeing everyone again and to meet some new friends this year.

Happy New Year everyone
Becky