Fine Motor Leads to Fine Arts (Part 8)

WELCOME BACK to my continuing series on Fine Motor + Fine Arts!!!

I look forward to creating these posts for you.... much of today's report will feature my own twin grand-children and some of the fun we've had together recently. Look at all of this delight we had last night!

Last night was 'pack up our world' night and prepare for our big-road ADVENTURE!!!


Our three weeks of Florida-togetherness has wound down and its time to return the TwinkeeZ to their Buckeye roots. Needless to say I had a few things on my mind to prepare for the journey..... and some packing to attend to.


In an effort to keep my budding artists 'busy' we went into my studio space to find something grand for them to explore independently.

 We emerged with two packages of untouched craft foam in shrink-wrap..... each pack had 6 pieces of foam in six colors -- precut rectangles a little larger than playing cards. Absolutely THE perfect size for fingers not yet four years old.  

The collage above are photos of the creations they made from stacking and sorting their colors.

They had OODLES of fun 'playing colors': trading them, dealing them and counting them..... all the while their little fingers were busy 'managing' this new and intriguing material. Having so many pieces at their disposal was a great portion of the fun. [Interestingly the die lots of colors were just slightly different between the two sets -- and that added to their pleasure.]

Once I had the suitcases a smidge underway I could enter the fun.

I suggested we build a "Color-City" and showed how the pieces could sit next to each other.

That led to a whole new array of fun.

It's been fun to watch fine-motor fun under my own nose!

Of course it wasn't long before they started their own ideas.

Favorites included variations on Twister and then soon it was American Bandstand.

Which then led me into my photo files.

Seemed only fair to dig out some oldies of WonderBoy.

These next couple of collages are from my visit a year ago on "Special People" day to his Preschool.

This 'peg-shot' is from the way-back files!!

Provide LOTS of opportunities to refine that grasp....

all in the process of play throughout the day.  

As Fine Motor skills are mastered there are possibilities for Fine Arts.

--or--

Is it that in Fine Arts mastery -- fine motor skills are developed?

Look at these glorious spring 'collages'. 

Cutting skills + design + drawing!!

I had this scissor-snipping idea in my Spring Arts article.

Talk about integrating Fine Motor + Fine Arts!

Speaking of flowers.....

did you get to see the guest author post here from Allison?

She has a very simple flower + painting idea for spring.

Can you guess the material used to create the 'bud'?

CUP CAKE LINER PAPERS!!!!!



Spring buds: DIY from No Time for Flash Card's Allison



Now from all of these gradual and humble beginnings of fine motor fun... let's take a look at spring flowers from the hands of mature children.

These beauties were in the end-of-the-year Art-walk last spring at St. Paul's in Westerville OH.

Isn't it thrilling to see what an Art teacher can direct mature students to create?

These are obviously a part of a study on Van Gogh.

If we aspire to such incredible work at the end of the elementary years,

then we that work with young children need to build a strong foundation!



Paper plates provide the backbone for spring mural in Preschool



 I LUV'D these drawings I captured during my Long Island Author-Illustrator visit in Amityville.

Thought they'd make an awesome collage of capability.

I am so intrigued by these four drawings.

Each artist creates their family in their own style.

A rectangle family. A triangle family.

A cylinder family and an articulated body part family.

Just makes me smile thinking of the capability of children!

Keep on creating.

Keep on strengthening those fine motor muscles --

in an effort to lead to Fine Arts!!

REMEMBER!!!!!

Always have the children see you in the act of WRITING!!

-- Debbie --

**To see all of the other articles in the series, click right here!