Saturday, March 26, 2011

Fruit Fun!

Arts Explorer #7: Grocery Shopping With a Twist


      Grocery shopping for some can be a chore and for others, can be fun. I believe it all depends on who is paying for the groceries! As a child, I have always had fun going to the grocery store with my mom. I remember always searching for the packaging that is the most colourful and fun looking, and then beginning my mom to buy it for me. The fruits are also what caught my attention, and still persists even today. There are so many fruits which are rich in colour, texture and design that make eating them even better! Here is a list of fruits that I have seen while grocery shopping:
·         Apples
·         Bananas
·         Peaches
·         Oranges
·         Grapefruits
·         Plums
·         Pears
·         Watermelons
·         Honeydew melons
·         Cantaloupes
·         Strawberries
·         Raspberries
·         Blueberries
·         Grapes
·         Pineapples

All of these fruits have a variety of shapes which make them all unique. Shape can be defined in many ways such as “referring to the outside shape of an object” (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009, p. 140) or “the edge of an enclosed space” (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009, p. 140) and many more. The shapes of these fruits are very different in comparison to each other, which make them each interesting in their own way.  







Schirrmacher, R & Fox J.E. (2009). Art & Creative Development for Young Children. Delmar: Cengage Learning. 

Monday, March 14, 2011

Gluing With Scissors!

Arts Explorer #6: Painting With Scissors

"Worlds of Cultures"
An art activity in which children can use their creative skills and also embrace their diversity, allows one another to not only understand more about the various cultures, but opens their eyes to a new world of knowledge.
In the art activity which I have created, children will be given various magazines, newspapers etc, and will be asked to cut out objects that represent their culture, traditions, religion and so on. After cutting out various pictures, the children will paper-mache their cut outs onto a small balloon. Each child will have their own “world of culture” and when combined together with their friends, will have different “Worlds of Cultures”. Every child will be able to explore and visually see all the differing cultures of their peers alongside of their own. This activity incorporates the use of many skills such as cutting with scissors, mixing, gluing and pasting. It is a very hands on activity in which all children can enjoy and take part in. When in an early childhood setting, implications such as combining the various fine motor skills, along with an open environment where children are welcome to work together and share ideas, provides them with opportunities to interact on many levels. I have noticed that children LOVE to get messy when working on any sort of creative art activity, so this is a perfect way to let them work hands on with their peers and get right into their work!

Mass and volume are important within this art activity as the outcome product is a three-dimensional figure. Mass and/or volume can have various meaning with some being “open or closed, heavy, bulky, solid, static or dynamic, hard or soft, etc.” (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009). There are many acceptable meanings for the words mass and volume as they incorporate critiques for height, weight and volume in three-dimensional art (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009).



Schirrmacher, R & Fox J.E. (2009). Art & Creative Development for Young Children. Delmar: Cengage Learning.