Beautiful Stuff

I idolize Cathy Weisman Topal. In my mind, she is the #1 art educator for young children. In her book, Beautiful Stuff, she describes a lesson in which children create a face out of found objects.

I begin the lesson with letting the children talk about a painting by Archimboldo.  They point out all of the objects that they see, and we talk about how different it is than a real face.





  I tell the children that we are going to go shopping for goodies to create our own imaginary faces.  They get a blue "shopping cart" (tray) and head to "K Mart" (my table of goodies) to buy their eyes, noses, ears, mouths, hair, eyebrows, etc.

 

At their tables, they arrange the goodies on a purple circle that serves as a base for the face.

After creating the face made from goodies, the children draw the faces as they see them.

I love how this little girl observed the cylindrical forms and tried to draw them as she saw them.

Near the end of class, the children put their goodies back in their carts and delivered them back to "K Mart."  This part of the lesson became a lesson in sorting as they had to look for the container the objects had originally been in.

After all the work was done, the children sat back on the floor.  I held up each piece and they applauded for each other.  Every one looked proud as they heard applause just for them.