Making SUSHI

This is an incredibly versatile clay project we did with children from ages 4 - 11 all sitting at the table working side by side each at their own skill level. We made sushi for hours with such an array of materials at the table. We had fabric, beads, rice, puff balls, little pieces of styrofoam, paper, some plastic leaves, glitter, plastic flowers, colored pasta. When setting up this project I slowly wandered through the studio looking for suitable materials, grabbing as many jars off the shelves as possible. I knew the more the kids had to choose from the better. Each student began with either a bento box made from a shoebox lid or with a sushi platter made from tongue depressors. 

With just a little bit of demonstration of flattening clay and rolling up fabrics inside as if it were seaweed, off the kids went, rolling, cutting, gluing, dipping, creating gorgeous and carefully designed little sculptures. They were getting ideas from each other and creating new ideas from the materials, beads as fish eggs, fabric as thin strips of carrot to wrap around a rice cake made from styrofoam, plastic leaves as salad. 

It was a glorious morning.  

Doughnuts Anyone

One of my teachers, Jillian, is just a little obsessed with the idea of making foods from everyday materials (actually from any materials). She just thinks it's the cutest, funniest subject for making objects with kids. So when she had the idea of doing a making food summer camp, I didn't need much coaxing. We will call it Artful Feast. We will make watercolor popsicles and shaving cream cakes, paper mâché ice cream cones, sushi (this will be another post) and doughnuts from socks. Yes, doughnuts from socks.

It really was a week of making choices. We put out so many choices of paint and toppings for each project and the students reveled in the joy of choosing which material to use next. 

We started with mismatched (clean) socks of a variety of colors. We cut off them in half and cut off the toes so that when they are rolled up they have a hole in the center. We also used tin foil to make doughnut holes.

We presented many different colors of paint to act as icing ( We found that acrylic worked best or a tempera paint mixed with some acrylic white to give it that icing color.) and many different colors of glitter, sand, as well as tiny beads and little paper shaving to act as coconut. 

The kids chose their icing to dip and their sprinkles to sprinkle. We talked about the flavors each might be. I loved how for one child the pink icing might be strawberry and another it might be cotton candy flavor ( I'm not sure what cotton candy flavor is besides just sweet). 

The last step was adding icing to the tin foil doughnut holes by rolling them in the paint and placing them into a paper bag and adding the topping of choice into the bag and then shaking and shaking the bag. This is the way my Great Grandmother covered her home made doughnut holes with powdered sugar when they were still warm. 

The little pastry boxes really helped to convey the concept even further. Each child brought home a little box of goodness from camp that day.

Creating Character Puppets

It's always a rewarding challenge to create projects that are intriguing to the kids in process and that they are really proud of.  Plaster is a material that can do both of these things. It's so much easier to use than paper mâché and the results are so much more immediate. We spent a few days during our Puppetry Week of summer camp creating these charming and charismatic puppets from plaster. 

To make the inner structure we used  balled up newspaper, cardboard cut into ear shapes, tape and tops cut off of a plastic water bottle.

Once the inner structure is formed we used the plaster gauze strips dipped in water to form the animal head. I added short dowels to the bottom of the plaster heads for the kids to hold onto.

After the kids painted their animals and while they were drying, the kids made hats, crowns, ties and scarves, but the kids didn't stop there. They then wanted to make glasses, mustaches, ear pieces, jewelry to create identities for each of their puppets. It was then time to dress up these creatures. We cut fabric for them to choose and plugged in the hot glue gun.

   

Paw Print Stamps

Aaahhhh summer flags. I love to watch the kids with their summer flags. Waving and watching the fabric flutter in the wind. This time we used the printing techniques of stamps to create the flags. 

When making stamps with kids the simpler the design the better, a nice graphic image. Usually I am encouraging the addition of more details when creating drawings. The addition of details can better define an image. But when making stamps the image has to be defined with just the outside lines. 

Foot prints seemed like a great way to talk about animals and create a design that is graphic. 

We began looking at animal foot prints. They got so excited to see each animal's footprint.

They drew the animal paw print of their choice on a piece of foam and after cutting them out we glued them to cut up 2X4s. Then the printing began. 

Happy Waving!

Miniature Worlds

We held a workshop a few weeks ago using mint tins that were donated to us by one of our generous parents. I so enjoy the challenge of coming up with projects when we get a large donation of a potential material. Since I am a big fan of collage and I love boxes, I thought it might be a good idea to combine them. 

With just some glue, scissors, gorgeous papers and a few old calendars (which are a great resource for images), we created little scenes inside the mint tins.  Using some pop up book technique we made them three dimensional. This is such a simple project that brings so much joy when I gaze upon them.