Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Ants at a Picnic



Weaving is a part of my county's kindergarten curriculum. It is a tricky skill for kindergartners. Most of them get the idea of "over, under, over, under" pretty easily. It's the next row of weaving that gets them. They have to do the opposite of what they did in the first row. Usually I save the lesson for the end of the year when they have had a year of learning under their belts.

Since they are studying ants in their classrooms, I combine the two areas. We weave a picnic tablecloth; make a sculptural lunch; and print the whole thing with fingerprint ants.

Last week my kiddies wove the cloth. Today they made the food and ants. Before they even started, we watched the video from Sesame Street of The Count having a picnic. He counts as the ants carry away his food. The kids loved it! They were excited too when I showed them the examples of work done by kids in past years.


This lesson filled up the entire hour of their art time today and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

6 comments:

MLBetterly said...

What a great project! I can't imagine keeping Kindergarteners still long enough to teach them anything! I salute you!

Chan Bliss said...

I just love the Count. I remember watching him when my kids were younger and we would count like the Count aha, aha, aha!

Pink Feather Paradise said...

What a fab project, I love the finger printed ants... and I loved sesame street... we don't seem to get it over here any more... I loved oscar the grouch and the cookie monster was superb!

x Alex

Susan Bivona, Art Teacher said...

OK - some how I NEED to remember this for next year at this time -- excellent lesson! Love it! Thanks for sharing! PS - thanks for the link to the video too!

daysease said...

Such fun!!! Love how they turned out!!! just so edible!! Except for the ants, of course. colorful!! and creative!!

Katie Gonzalez said...

These are insanely cute... I would have gone CRAZY over this project as a kid... I'm kind of tempted to do one right now!