Friday Group - Watercolor Painting with Yellow and Red

As the Friday group gathered for the second week to explore watercolor painting, they began discussing the colors they are using. I hear Kaia say "blue" (one of the colors we used last week) and then I prompt the children further, asking "what color do we have there today". Kaia thinks it is one color while Sebastien insists it's another. I don't correct either of them, I just want to hear there thoughts and see what they do.

While the discussion is short it is the beginning of the children dialoging together. During the discourse, Hannah observes the other children's motions carefully as she does throughout her time spent painting with the watercolors on this day.



As the children spend more time painting and drawing they begin to label their own marks. Listen as Kaia names one of her swirl motions. Later she experiments with mixing a little red with a lot of yellow and then the opposite.



The watercolors really caught Bryce's attention and he spent time exploring both the kind of marks he could make with his brush in addition to how the watercolors moved on the paper and out of the jars.



Sebastien turned the watercolor painting into finger and hand painting! I wonder if the red watercolor paint reminded him of lipgloss that I put on in the morning?

Wednesday Group - Watercolor Painting with Blue and Yellow

Each child in the Wednesday group had a different focus while exploring the watercolors. Caleb concentrated on getting the paint on his paint brush with lots of dipping and then would paint using a swirling motion.

Sebastien discovered mixing the colors. I love how he checks in to see if it is okay to continue with his exploration.

Max took interest in discovering the different brushes and the marks he made with them.

Friday Group - Watercolors Blue and Yellow

Mixing, pouring, dripping, and painting - what else can you ask to discover? This week we embared on the exploration of liquid watercolors. Using watercolor paper and paint brushes I waited to see how the children would use the materials. Kaia and Sebastien used the brushes almost as if they were pens or pencils. Kaia gets the idea of making a few strokes with the brush and then re-dipping it in the color while Sebastien continues to use the paintbrush long after it stops placing color on the paper.

Hannah explores both how the paint is spread on the paper and mixing the paint in the jar. She also layered colors one on top of the other creating a new color.

Friday Group - Real Life Uses of Pens and Pencils

The Friday Group exhibited the same knowledge about writing on small pieces of paper as the Wednesday group. Keeping their movements small and concentrated on the pieces of paper and large and fluid on the large surface paper. Sebastien was very excited to have Kaia draw with him and he tries to convince her to join him at the table. The subtle attempt to woe her over is gentle and kind, he just goes and stands by her. Once she does come over to the table he comments about what she is doing.

As they draw together, they both take note of the other's actions. Kaia Love notices ("same, same") that they are using similar pens. She also looks very official in her "note taking", making precise movements with her pen on the note pad.



Hannah's ritual at the beginning of an exploration is to sit on a lap while she initially explores the materials presented. It was tricky to film her as she sat on my lap but she is very focused in her writing and makes much bigger motions on the paper as she draws.



Bryce always surprises me with how he explores the materials. While he did make a lot of dots with the pens and pencils he also was the only one who explored the spiral bound notebooks as if he were reading a book. He turned the pages over and over as if he were looking for something, a story perhaps?