“Instead of going to a pumpkin patch, our school became a pumpkin patch!”

Last week, we kicked off our Pre-K expedition with a pumpkin explosion on the playground!  Children arrived at school and were surprised to see that there were pumpkins of all shapes and sizes everywhere!

Briana: I found a pumpkin on a bicycle!

Andres: There’s pumpkins everywhere!

Amen: I found something!  A pumpkin!  I need to find more.

Mae: Instead of going to a pumpkin patch, our school became a pumpkin patch!

Friends noticed and wondered all sorts of things about the pumpkin on the playground.  As children found them, they were asked to bring them to the picnic table so that we could explore them further.

Waju: I have never seen a white pumpkin!

Sarah: Is it an orange?

Trebor: I want to smell them.  I don’t know how they will smell like.

Ayub: Is this the pumpkins home?

Siah: Wow… heavy!

Ayub: The baby pumpkins on the branch look like marshmallows.

Zeina:  Yeah, it looks like roasting marshmallows on a stick!

Elliott: I can make a snowman.

Next, all four Pre-K classes piled onto buses and we hit the road for Butlers Orchard to learn more about where pumpkins come from and what it means to harvest.

Bennett: Thanks bus driver for taking us to the pumpkin patch!

Cory: This is a bumpy ride.

Esther: It looks like a pumpkin party here!

William: It’s really tough to walk through the vines at the mumpkin pumpkin patch.

Waju: I think a porcupine ate that pumpkin!

William: Lots of spiders on the pumpkins… ah!

After the long weekend, friends returned to school and continued to notice, wonder and ask questions about the pumpkins.  Children were ecstatic to see that pumpkins were still on the playground, in their classrooms and even in the Studio!

Kavalli: Pumpkins in the Studio! That’s crazy! There’s more pumpkins! Pumpkins are everywhere!

Friends used twist crayons to do an observational drawing of the pumpkins.  Children examined the color, size and texture of the pumpkins and gourds very carefully.

Carlos: I’m counting the pumpkins so I know how many to draw.

Siena: The red pumpkin on top looks like a hat.

Miguel: I like these pumpkins.  They are all different sizes but I like the little one the best because it’s like a baby.

Next, children used liquid watercolors to paint over their pumpkins.  Friends were excited to see that they could still see their crayon drawings and enjoyed watching them emerge through the paint.

Ra’Maya: I can still see the dots on my pumpkin!  It’s like the paint disappeared in the paper.  I think it went to church.

Waju: Hey, I remember these!  They are water paints!

Dai’Jah: I can still see all the lines on my pumpkin.  And they were skinny.

“I need years to do this big painting!”

Today, the Tuesday art groups continued to work on their large resist paintings!  Friends were so excited to paint standing up and were thrilled with the new liquid watercolors available today for their resist paintings.  Children enjoyed making drips with the liquid watercolors and discovered that when different colored drips intersected, new colors were created!  Below are some photos from today, as well as children’s words… enjoy!

Braeden: The drip looks like a river… or a tunnel.  It’s an orange tunnel to the Star Wars city, wheeee!

Phoenix: I’m gonna make a drip spot, a green drip.  It’s part of the roller coaster… the down part.  Hey, it dripped on my hands, too!

 Haley: The tape is a shield.  It means the paint wont go through.

Jasper: This painting is outer space caught on fire and now the whole world is on fire.  The orange grass is eating everything.  When the sun turns red, it means it’s really, really hot.

 Mouhammadou: This is my beautiful house… here’s my doggy, Nemo.  He lost his collar.  I need an “M” for my name.  Here’s two bugs… a family of bugs.  See my pets?  An elephant, see I need a house for it.  Nemo needs a house, too.  The bugs are my other pets.  And there’s my family, right there!

Minna: It’s dripping!  The new colors can drip!  Lots of drips right here.  What happens when you put the wetness on the dryness?  I’m being a scientist, this is my experiment.  What’s gonna happen?  Huh?  Oh, you can still see it!  Ms.Cushner, this is the shark.  And those are the two mouths.  That’s his eyeball, it’s big… and there’s the big wave!  It’s dark blue.  The red on the bottom is blood.  The daddy shark was fighting the biting fish all the way at the bottom, but he’s okay now.

Jasper illustrates “the airplane taking the sun to China!”

This week in the Pre-K Art Studio, we have been learning about the artistic process of crayon resist!  We introduced twist crayons and friends did preliminary illustrations using the new material.  After children finished drawing, they used watercolors to paint over the crayon and discovered that the oil and crayon and the water in the paint don’t mix!  This is always such an exciting process to learn and friends created really beautiful work.

Jasper: At first I was like, why do we need a smock to use twist crayons?  Then I noticed we were using paint to make the colors shine and that’s why we need a smock!

Ms.Cushner: What do you think makes the colors shine?

Jasper: Maybe the water?  These paintbrushes just love the water.  They really love swimming.

Ms.Cushner: Jasper, can you tell me about your painting?

Jasper: The red is the wings and the airplanes taking the sun to China.  What’s happening is it’s nighttime in DC and daytime in China.  The purple stuff is the exhaust.  Exhaust comes out of planes or cars when you drive.  It makes it go.  The red is the fire so it can fly to China so fast.  I put orange on the green crayon and now it’s so beautiful.