Our long break ...

          I wanted to apologize to those of you that subscribe to our channel.  Wecreate is a project that my sister and I initiated together.  The past two years have been eventful for both of us.  My sister got married and had a baby.  I am planning my wedding and I started a full time masters in Education with the College of William & Mary.  While we haven't had the same time to work on our blog and YouTube channel that we would like, art remains an important component to our lives as does our belief in its importance to the lives of children.  More recently I was required to complete reviews of several children's books.  If you are interested in some quality literature to share with your children, I encourage you to check these posts out:

Children's Book Reviews

Branching Out

I recently decided to start a new blog to share lesson plan ideas and activities for two-year-olds.  I've been teaching this age group for awhile now, but initially when I started I felt a little out of my element as the majority of my work experience had been in the 3-5 range.  A lot of resources that you can find online have to be modified to be developmentally appropriate.  I decided I wanted to share the activities I use in my class and resources I've found to be useful as there were most likely other educators or parents in the same predicament.  Take a peek at Teaching Twos.

Frozen Chalk

Frozen chalk is a great winter activity to make with your students or children. My preschool class made this for an "Ice" theme and it is even appropriate for toddlers. We continued to refreeze the pieces and let the children use them throughout the week until there was nothing left. They absolutely loved this! Using cornstarch, water, and some food coloring gives you a fun project that serves as an art, sensory, and science activity in one. 

Materials:

To complete this project you will need cornstarch, water, food coloring, and an ice cube tray.

Here is our YouTube video if you are interested in watching the process:

A Preschool Thanksgiving Lesson: The Mayflower

A preschool Thanksgiving art lesson on the Mayflower. The boat is drawn using water soluble oil pastels which can be spread using a paint brush dipped in water. This is a great lesson to correspond with the holiday and teaching about lines and shapes. Be sure to talk about the different shapes that can be used to create parts of the picture.

Materials:
- water soluble oil pastels
- white paper
- paint brush
- water

Preparation:
Print out a picture of the Mayflower to use it to discuss the Pilgrims journey.  Ask your child what shapes they notice in the boat.

Our YouTube Video Demonstrating the Lesson:

A Wetu: A Preschool Thanksgiving Lesson

A wetu is a Wampanoag temporary house built of red cedar sticks and grass.  The Wampanoag tribe shared in the first Thanksgiving feast with the Pilgrims.  This is a drawing lesson that uses lines and shapes to create a simple holiday picture.  

Materials:
- Crayola drawing chalk or chalk pastels
- Blending stump or q-tips

The following is our YouTube video demonstrating the process:

Jack O'Lantern Play Dough Mat

How to make a play dough mat from construction paper to encourage working on shapes. Play dough is a great fine motor activity and you can make play dough mats for any theme or holiday. Write or type prompts to direct specific skills you want to build on. These can also be made using clip art and a word document.  I get my assistants to make our play dough mats at school using construction paper since it is less time consuming and readily available.

Materials:

-scissors

-glue

-construction paper

-card stock

-laminator and laminating sheets

Preparation:

Come up with an idea for your play dough mat.  It is best to mount the pictures on card stock especially if you work with young kids to make it more durable.  Laminating is a must as well!

Our YouTube Tutorial and Example:

Gourd Ghosts!

This is a really simple Halloween art idea that can easily be completed by children as young as two.  We talked about fall harvest items this week such as apples, squash, and gourds.  Our parents brought in gourds for the children to be able to examine and afterwards each child painted a gourd to bring home.  They loved this art project!

Materials:
-gourd
-acrylic paint (white and black)
-paint brushes
-newspaper to cover work area

Preparation:
Prepare your work space by covering it with newspaper or art mats if you have them available.  Place the white acrylic paint into a container.  As you will have to wait for the white paint to dry you can hold off putting out black paint until the gourd is ready.

Our YouTube video demonstrating the process:

Seal for a Preschool Zoo Theme

The following lesson is a preschool cut and paste lesson that uses gray tempera paint on a seal. If your children are capable of cutting the shapes themselves it will make it easier for them if you outline the shapes for them.  In this lesson I used a cut up cupcake liner to create the collar and ball. Not only is this lesson great for a preschool circus theme but it is a good way to discuss shapes.  As my students are two-years-old I pre-cut the shapes for them but allowed them to glue everything on in their own way.

Materials:
- Construction paper for the background in a bright color
- Seal cut out or outline if the children are cutting it themselves
- Trapezoid or rectangle shape for the seal's stage in construction paper
- Gray tempera (or white and black if you would like to explain making gray and what a shade is)
- Glue and scissors

Preparation:
If your class is young like mine and not able to cut for themselves, pre-cut the seal, stage, and cupcake liner and place into zip lock bags to keep them organized.  You can either mix the gray yourself or do this in front of your children as a way to explain how gray is made.

Our YouTube Video showing the process:

An American Flag for Independence Day: A Two and Three Year Old Lesson

This preschool art lesson is a really simple American flag that you could use for Fourth of July. I did this lesson with my two-year-old class and they loved it.  It uses a car dipped in paint to create the red stripes in the flag and a q-tip in white for the stars.  Children love using novel things to paint with and they especially love getting to drive a car back and forth to spread paint.  

Materials:
blue and white construction paper
glue1
scissors
red and white paint
a q-tip
a toy car

Preparation:
If your children are young like my class is, precut the blue rectangle for them.  If they are capable of cutting it themselves outline a rectangle for them.  Since the car being driven across the paper is the motion being used to spread the paint this can get a little messy toward the edges of the paper.  If you prefer you could place the paper in an aluminum pan or spread newspaper or butcher paper on the table.

Link for Our YouTube Video Tutorial:

This is how the flag turned out from one of my two-year-old students:

Art provides so many benefits to preschool children.  As I am now a two-year-old early childhood educator, I realize how little there is out there for this age group lesson plan wise.  Many of my current and upcoming videos concentrate on this age group in order to fill in this gap and provide other preschool teachers, parents, or babysitters with fun art to do with their child or children that is developmentally appropriate.  All of the art lessons we post for children can be easily modified for age or skill.  Please ask or share how you did!

Fine Motor Activities::Preschool Color Matching Lesson

The following lesson is designed to aid children with their fine motor skills using clothespins and teach color matching.  I used the cans for the purpose of self-containing the lesson (Montessori style) so that my two-year old class could have the chance to choose what they work on and take it from the shelf without it being difficult to carry.  You could do many variations on this lesson.  I did have to modify it myself as it turned out the clothespins were too difficult for my students aside from the oldest twos.  I switched out the clothespins for squares of paper with the colored dots that I had laminated and attached velcro, in a way maintaining the two fold purpose of the lesson.  As I have used these containers for many different lessons, they can also be used to correspond with monthly themes.  In the past I have made matching cards using stickers with velcro backs that the children use to match (insects, ocean life, dinosaurs) while placing the cards inside the can for easy storage afterwards.

Materials:

- Baby formula can

- Cardstock 

- Items to match (colored dots, stickers, etc)

- Clothespins/Velcro depending on the ability of your child/students

- Packaging tape

Preparation:

Tape one set of the item to be matched around the can while the other set is used on the end of the clothespin.  If you are doing squares of card stock with a matched item, I suggest laminating it for durability and hot gluing it to the clothespin.  As I said with my class I had to modify the lesson by getting rid of the clothespin and laminating a card stock square with the dots on them to be matched by velcro.


Our YouTube Video demonstrating the process:

Preschool Printing Lesson::Spring Chicks

The following lesson is a printing lesson that uses koosh balls to print chicks for a spring lesson.  You can find koosh balls at any dollar store in the children's section.  This lesson is appropriate for children as young as two and uses tempera paint.

Vocabulary to Introduce:

printing
tempera

Materials:

-paper plates

-yellow, blue, black, and orange tempera paint

-koosh ball

Preparation:

Water down blue tempera paint and mix well.  You can place this on the table for the children to start with.  Place yellow paint on plates with koosh balls in the center.  You could place the orange and black on a plate by themselves off to the side until needed.


Our YouTube Video demonstrating the process:

Fine Motor Activities::St.Patrick's Day Themed Lesson::Slotted Can with Shamrocks

This video continues the series of fine motor activity videos we are starting.  Fine motor activities are extremely important with preschool age children.  Such important functions such as writing, cutting, and more require the coordination and a certain amount of strength in the small muscles of the hands and fingers.  In addition, fine motor activities require intention and concentration.  In particular, using lessons that require passing objects through a slot works on developing wrist movement as the child tries to orient it into the container as well as serving as a practice for hand eye coordination. In this video I used a three finger grip which was encouraged by the Montessori school I worked previously.  This lesson can easily be adapted for other themes/seasons by changing the shape/type of the objects being used to put into the can.  In addition instead of using a baby formula can, I have seen other educators use chip cans as well.  I also laminated the shamrocks for added durability with my two year old class.

Materials:
-can
-scissors
-cut out objects (shamrocks)


Our YouTube Video demonstrating the process:

Preschool Table Top Activities :: Winter Snowflake Sorting

One last winter lesson before we welcome spring in the next few weeks.  This is a sorting lesson using plastic cups and plastic snowflakes that can easily be found in stores such as Dollar Tree, Walmart, or Michael's.  The snowflakes can be switched out for other seasonal items you think of.  Stickers or cut out items work just as well.

Sorting is an important activity that begins in the preschool years.  Activities such as these can encourage young children to recognize things that are the same and different building the skills for classification.

This lesson can be appropriate for children as young as two.  I am currently a two year old teacher and even my youngest students can accomplish this once I have worked with them for a couple weeks.  If you wish to make the activity easier start with two different types of items to sort.

Materials Needed:
-plastic cups
-seasonal items for sorting
-hot glue or tape to place an example on the front or bottom of the cup

Preparation:
The only preparation for this lesson would be to either glue or tape an example of which item goes in each cup if you wish.


Our YouTube Video demonstrating the process:

Fine Motor Activities::Valentine's Day Themed Lesson::Tweezing Letters

This is the first in a series of fine motor activity videos we are starting.  Fine motor activities are extremely important with preschool age children.  Such important functions such as writing, cutting, and more require the coordination and a certain amount of strength in the small muscles of the hands and fingers.  In addition, fine motor activities require intention and concentration.  The fine motor activities we will post can be modified to make them easier or harder depending on the age and skill of the child.  While I currently teach a two year old class, the majority of my students, aside from those who have just turned two, can tweeze (although my class uses plastic, round-tipped tweezers and pom poms).  This lesson is appropriate for children three and older.  If you have questions about how you can change this lesson for your unique situation please comment or write us!

In the following lesson, students will tweeze letters out of an ice tray as a fine motor activity. Fine motor activities often serve the dual purpose of developing strength and coordination while building concentration skills.

Materials:

ice tray (Valentine's heart ice tray was purchased at the dollar store)

tweezers

paper

red marker

laminator, contact paper, or tape (if you wish to protect the letters)

Preparation:

Cut rectangles that are small enough to fit into each shape of the ice tray and that leave room to maneuver the tweezers in.  Draw a small "V" so that the rectangles resemble the back of a letter.  When placing the lesson out, make sure each heart has a letter in it and place a container (small bowl or condiment cup) to collect the letters as they tweeze them out.

Our YouTube Video demonstrating the process:

For Younger Children:

You can make it easier for them by using pom poms and plastic tweezers (can be purchased at a discount school supply store).  Here is an example of the easy grip type we use in my class with two to three year olds:

http://www.learningresources.com/product/120033.do?src=GOOGLEPS&gclid=CLTm98LAwrwCFQHNOgodzggAkQ

Penguin Potato Printing

This is a winter potato printing lesson.  I do currently teach a two to three year old class.  My children completed this lesson with amazing results, although we limited it to one penguin.  Some variations of this you could do depending on the level of difficulty your children may need would be to include a background (snow/water).

Vocabulary to Introduce:

printing
acyrlic

Materials:

paper plates

school glue

potatoes

acrylic paint (black, white, and orange)

google eyes

Preparation:

Slice potatoes in half and pair them on plates making sure that one is smaller than the other to fit inside the body for a white belly.  Put white and black paint on the plates, spreading them to correct size with the potato intended for each.  Either place the orange on separate plates or save until the children begin to finish with their penguins.


Our YouTube Video demonstrating the process:

A Toddler/Preschool Printing Lesson: Ladybugs and Dandelions

This lesson was developed for a 2's/3's class.  Printing is an excellent fine motor practice for children of this age group.  With this lesson a sponge and stencil brushes are used to create ladybugs in grass with dandelions. 

Vocabulary to Introduce:

printing

Materials:

-white paper

-tempera paint (red, black, green, yellow)

-sponge (cut into a circle)

-stencil sponges

-paint brush

Preparation:

Beforehand hot glue or glue the details of the dandelion petals on the circular cut sponge and allow to dry completely.  Place the green and yellow paint on separate plates.  Red and black paint because of the small volume can be used on the same plate. 

Modifications for Older Students:

If you know the skill level of the students that you work with, you can allow them to paint the grass with a paint brush themselves.  In addition, details can be added to the ladybugs such as legs.

Our YouTube Video demonstrating the process:



Truffula Trees: An Earth Day/Arbor Day Printing Lesson

The following lesson is inspired by Dr. Seuss' story "The Lorax." With Earth Day and Arbor Day both in April I thought this would be an appropriate story to base a lesson on. Using koosh balls that you can find at any dollar store, children will enjoy the novelty of painting a scene from a familiar and well-loved story.

Vocabulary to Introduce:

printing
recycling

Materials:

-construction paper (blue, green, and white)

-scissors

-glue stick

-tempera paint (red, yellow, purple, pink, white, black)

-small paper plates for paint

-koosh balls (one for each color if you don't want to have to wash in between colors)

-paint brush

Preparation:

Give each child a sheet of blue paper for their background, a half sheet of green and half sheet of white.  Place each paint color on a plate with a koosh but don't forget to include a plate that shares a small amount of black and white for the tree trunks.  

For Older Children:

You can make the picture more complicated by using found twigs for tree trunks painted with white and black paint and using small pieces of bright colored yarn.

Our YouTube Video demonstrating the process:

"The Very Hungry Caterpillar": A Cut & Paste

This cut and paste lesson is inspired by the work of Eric Carle, a well known children's author and illustrator.  Your students or child will enjoy reading the classic, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and creating their own picture of the caterpillar eating through an orange. 

Vocabulary to Introduce:

illustrator

Materials:

-construction paper in black, orange, green, red, and yellow

purple and yellow oil pastel or crayon

-scissors

-glue sticks

Preparation:

For younger students:  Draw the circles in pencil beforehand.  Do not give them all the pieces of paper at the same time as they will often loose parts when throwing away scraps.  Children who are having a particular difficult time turning their paper to follow the curve of a circle can be shown how to shave small pieces to get closer to the line.

Our YouTube Video demonstrating the process:

Concentric Squares: A Cut & Paste

This cut and paste lesson is inspired by the abstract geometric work of Frank Stella, an American painter and printmaker born in 1936.  Stella graduated from school at Princeton where he majored in history and painted.  After his graduation he would move to New York where he would begin painting more seriously.  Frank Stella is considered a leading figure of the Minimal art movement.

Vocabulary to Introduce:

minimalism
concentric
geometric shape (square, rectangle, circle)
abstract art

Materials:

-construction paper in bright colors

-scissors

-stencils of squares out of card stock or poster board

-pencils

-glue sticks

Preparation:

For younger students:  Cut squares of varying sizes using an inch difference between each size.  You can place these squares in a container or on a paper plate at the center of the table.

For older students:  Older students can either trace the shape using a stencil or create the square using a ruler depending on the age. 

Our YouTube Video demonstrating the process:

Winter Birch: A Watercolor Masking Technique

Using masking tape or painter's tape your child or students can create an evening winter scene of birch trees and snow.  The tape is used to mask the shapes of the birch trees and moon, while white crayon or oil pastel is used to draw snowflakes.  A blue watercolor wash is used over the picture.  After pulling off the tape (try to give the wash a few minutes to start to dry so as not to run) black or brown lines can be added as detail to the trees

Vocabulary to Introduce:

masking technique
watercolor wash

Materials:

-watercolor paper

-masking tape or painter's tape

-blue watercolor or watered down tempera paint

-scissors

-white and black crayon or oil pastel

Preparation:

Pre-tear or cut as many trunks and branches as necessary so that all you will need to do is hand them to the child or students to place on the paper.  Masking tape can rip the paper if it is pulled to quickly.  It sometimes helps to stick it to an article of clothing before handing it to the child or instructing them to do it if you can trust them not to fold the tape in on itself.  If you desire, tape off the other colors of paint so that they are not tempted to use them or place bowls  with the thinned tempera between seats placing  a paper towel beneath it to daub excess paint from the brush.

Our YouTube Video demonstrating the process:

Modifications:

For older children you can allow them to cut or tear the tape themselves.