Preschool Picasso: Monet

This was the first program in Youth for the Fall 2019 newsletter without any registration and it went well. I pretty much had around the same numbers as before, but I did see three new families. I didn't need to use tickets and I made extra crafts just in case.

I read the group Philippe in Monet's Garden by Lisa Jobe Carmack. This was a cute, rhyming story about a frog named Philippe and how he came to be in Monet's garden in France where he was painted instead of eaten as French cuisine. The group seemed to have enjoyed the book and were engaged throughout.

For our first craft, we made an inspired Monet craft using paint, construction paper, and coffee liners. The kids used blue paint to paint the background for the pond, added their pre-cut lily pads, and bunched up their coffee filters to make the lily pad flowers. Pink paint was added to their coffee filters to make their flowers more colorful like Monet's.

For our second craft, we made another lily craft using construction paper and coffee filters. We used a different technique of ripping paper to make the impressionist look Monet has in his works. The kids ripped their light blue and dark blue paper in strips and glued them onto card stock to make their pond. They ripped green construction paper to make their lily pads and added the coffee filter and pink circle dot to make their flowers.

The kids liked using paint and being able to rip paper.

Preschool Picasso: Vincent van Gogh

This program usually has a great turnout, but today's was even better. We read a short story on Vincent van Gogh called Vincent's Colors that had his paintings and his words and then we did two painting crafts inspired by his art.

Our first craft was painting a sunflower portrait. I printed out a sunflower coloring page that looked like van Gogh's "Sunflowers" and they had green, yellow, orange, and brown paint to paint their sunflower portrait. This gave them practice for painting inside the lines, but the kids could paint anyway they liked and blend colors.

Our second craft was making our own Starry Night painting. They were given a blank cardstock paper and blue, yellow, and black paint colors. They painted and blended with their colors and then I showed them how to use a fork to make van Gogh's swirls like in his painting. The kids liked the idea of using the fork.

I really enjoyed this one and announcements were made about the Lunch in the Library program.

Other books:

In the Garden with Van Gogh Julie Merberg

Katie and the Starry Night James Mayhew

Vincent Can't Sleep Barb Rosenstock

Van Gogh and the Sunflowers Laurence Anholt

The Artist and Me Shane Peacock