Sensory Art

This week's group art was student-led. Here are the supplies we had at our disposal:

I pre-selected pages from magazines that had large images of high interest objects, along with cardstock, tissue paper squares (that we had previously made by practicing our cutting skills), markers, stickers, white paint, glue, foam shapes, plastic lacing, hole punch, and scissors. 

Here are the masterpieces that were created!

I handed out the cardstock and the kids wrote their names on the back. We then flipped over our papers. The kids chose the magazine page they wanted to embellish. We put glue "all over" the back of the magazine page and adhered the cardstock. Each child identified and chose a foam block which we dipped into the paint and either stamped or smeared onto their page. I pinched four holes across and six holes down each side of the papers and the kids laced around the edges. They then finished by embellishing with the tissue paper squares and stickers.

This is the end of the spring semester. I'm gearing up for summer camp and many fun and interesting new sensory ideas!

Part of my sensory art class is not only trying to find different ways to use common art materials, but how to use everyday items in an artful way. Here's an example:

I had prepared some cardboard shapes (an egg and a bunny) which we traced them onto cardstock with marker. The students identified six different colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. I prepared three palettes with pairs of primary colors and passed them out. Instead of paintbrushes, we used plastic Easter eggs! Using the rounded top and bottom as our vessel to transfer the paint from palette to paper, the  paint started to blend into secondary colors. Once the students were done painting I traded the used eggs and palettes for clean eggs and palettes with glue. I had the students open the eggs and differentiate the big half and little half. Another layer of texture was added to their artwork by dipping the open circular edge of the plastic egg into the glue and stamping it onto their paper. We then sprinkled, shook, and tapped glitter onto the page and the excess into the trash. 

After we create, we always share our art with our friends and compliment each other by using our new vocabulary. This class we got to highlight tracing, paintstrokes, primary and secondary colors, stamping and definition.