Winter |
Trace umbrella shapes for children to cut or prepare pre-cut umbrella shapes. Have children paint them and when they are dry glue on silver sequins to represent raintdrops. Help the child to tape a pipe-cleaner to the back of the umbrella and bend it to make a handle |
Umbrellas |
Raindrops Trace around raindrop shapes on blue card and have child cut around two. Cut out the middle of the raindrop (adult to do this) . Provide silver or blue cellophane raindrop shapes (pre-cut by an adult before activity). Children glue one of these pre-cut shapes onto one of the raindrops they have cut from the card. An adult needs to then staple the other raindrop that the child has cut over this so that the two raindrops are joined together with silver or blue cellophane in the middle. The raindrops with blue cellophane in the middle look very effective in the sunlight. |
Clouds and rainbows. Provide pre cut cloud shapes for the children to paint with black and grey paint to make storm clouds. We also allowed the children to glue on cotton wool balls as some children wanted to make their clouds look fluffy. The rainbows were photocopied colour in sheets. We talked to the children about the colours of the rainbow and provided a rainbow to look at while colouring so they could try to get the order of the rainbow colours right. We then allowed the children to cut around their rainbow if they wished to do so. |
Rainbow We talked about how rainbows are made by sunlight shining through water droplets. We talked about the seven colours of the rainbow and then we cut out a large rainbow shape from thick card and divided it into seven strips for the colours. As a small group activity, children had turns painting the colours of the rainbow and when it was dry, they glued scrunched up pieces of crepe paper onto it. |
Winter Board Here's a sample of winter boards we have done. We pinned the figure onto the board and some of the items that the children had made such as clouds, raindrops and rainbows. We cut coloured strips of cellophane to make a rainbow and clear strips of cellophane to make rain. This would also look very effective against a light blue or grey background |
Small Rainbows We photocopied small rainbow templates (the same ones we used for the rainbow colouring in activity) and glued them onto card. We provided crepe paper matching the colours of the rainbow. The adults scrunched crepe paper into balls prior to the activity and we talked about the order of the colours of the rainbow with the children so that they were able to glue the crepe paper in an organised way. This was quite a time-consuming task for the children but I found that they enjoyed the challenge of collaging using scrunched paper and they were really impressed with how their artwork turned out. NB Start preparing the crepe paper a couple weeks ahead of doing the activity as you will need LOTS AND LOTS of balls. You could maybe put out crepe paper squares and containers and encourage the children to start preparing the balls during their free time. |
Little Umbrellas Prepare templates to make cone shapes on coloured card. Cut these out or have children cut them. Children then decorate using paints and glitter paints. When the template is dry, assist the children to fold it into a cone and secure it with tape, ensuring a small hole is left at the point of the cone. Through this small hole, thread a pipe cleaner and bend it at the bottom to create the umbrella handle shape. To secure the handle leave a little bit of pipe cleaner sticking through the point, bend this over and tape it against the side of the umbrella. The children will be able to help do all these steps. This is a good activity to reinforce the learning of different shapes such as cones. |
Developing Drawing Skills To help children learn about shapes and develop their drawing skills I teach them specific concepts such as drawing umbrellas and snowmen, and we talk about the shapes we need to use to draw these things eg. for the umbrella we talked about using arch shapes and "J" lines. |
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- Portfolio Activity |
