The Day the Toddlers Became Big Kids!
The goal for Wednesday’s Big Kid’s Club this term is to explore the colour wheel and maybe learn a little about each colour on the wheel – different shades, their significance and, if it’s a secondary colour, how we can create them by mixing primary colours. Each week for the first couple of months will focus on a different colour on the wheel along with an exciting art project!
September has brought a new crew of Big Kids to our Club. Now that a lot of the BIG buddies have gone off to kindergarten, the toddlers are coming up! They’ve become my big kids for the afternoon.
To get them in an artsy, colour-appreciating mood, we read a book called The Day the Crayons Quit. The story is about a little boy named Duncan who loves colouring, only to find that his crayons have gone on strike.
Each crayon left him a letter detailing their dissatisfaction. Black Crayon, for instance, feels rejected when Duncan only uses him to draw outlines. On the other hand, poor Red Crayon feels overworked because Duncan loves nothing more than to draw massive fire trucks in full colour.
Fire trucks… speaking of which, next Wednesday is my Field Trip day for Big Kid’s Club! We will be giving our red crayons a rest to go see the real fire trucks down at Fire Hall 4. The kids will learn about the colour red in the context of emergency response as well as meet some of the firefighters on duty!
But back to this week… the day concluded with some colour mixing, looking at the number of different shades of blue you can create simply by adjusting the amount of white paint in the mix.
The plan was to create a monochrome colour palette by sponging all the different blues onto paper, but the kids had some ideas of their own…
The important thing, though, was that the kids got a peek at how versatile painting can be – even within the same colour… In addition to having fun, of course!
