Construction Paper Landscape: A Tearing Lesson for Precutters

A landscape is a picture that shows elements of natural scenery whether through a beach, a lake, trees, or mountains. This lesson uses tearing to create a landscape and would be appropriate for preschool students who do not cut.  Even students who are still working at the skill or have some proficiency at it may enjoy this lesson as well as tearing is a fun process.

Vocabulary to Introduce:
landscape

Materials:

-construction paper

-glue

Preparation:

Rather than giving students glue sticks we often place glue on small paper plates and give them q-tips to brush it on. 

Our YouTube Video demonstrating the process:

Action Painting!!!

Action painting is fun for children because it provides a novel means of placing paint on the paper.  You can use a wide variety of ways to do this whether using a squirt bottle filled with paint, a ball or marble rolling across the paper, or even a toy car whose wheels have been dipped.  You can use the work of Jackson Pollack as an example if you wish to tie it in with art appreciation.  In addition, I intentionally used the primary colors with the purpose of being able to see color mixing which can be an additional objective of your lesson.

Vocabulary to Introduce:
action painting

primary colors (red, blue, yellow)

secondary colors (orange, green, purple)

Materials:

-aluminum pan

-tempera paint (red, blue, yellow)
-containers for paint
-plastic spoons
-ping pong balls, golf balls, marbles, or toy cars
-scotch tape
-thick white paper

Preparation:

Tape the paper into the bottom of the aluminum pan.  Place the three colors of paint in the containers and place a plastic spoon in each.  You do want to let the child try to transfer the ball or marble from the container to the pan on their own in order to practice the small motor skill.

Our YouTube Video demonstrating the process: