Trees in Fall - Janet Campbell

Trees in the Fall

I have used this activity with both preschool, and kindergarten classes to help them illustrate the changing leaves in the fall, and to help them understand what happens when we mix colors of paint.  This helps them use a different technique for mixing paints and gives them a way to communicate their ideas while making connections between visual art and science.

Materials needed:

2 small paper plates

Red Tempera paint

Yellow Tempera paint

Brown crayon

White paper (9 x 12)

2 sponges for painting

Procedure:

1.      Place small amount of red and yellow paint in separate paper plates

2.      Place paper on flat surface

3.      Draw a tree trunk on paper (may want to use several and create autumn hill side)

4.      Dip one sponge into red paint and dab it above tree trunk/trunks

5.      Dip the other sponge into yellow paint and dab it above tree trunk/trunks over lapping red paint so that the two colors can mix and be separate giving the colors of red, yellow, and orange

6.      Hang to dry

The children in both groups absolutely loved watching the colors mix and were amazed that they could make a third color when only using the two to begin with.  Clean up was relatively easy, you throw the paper plates with the paint on them in the trash, and wash out the sponges to be ready to use again.  With kindergarten children they threw away their own plates, and set them in the paint sink, (you could even use a coffee can) and I washed them out when I had a break in the day.

After thought:  I would cut out tree trunks and glue them on rather than having the children color them so that their attention is on the mixing of colors and the paints rather than one the crayons.