Art and Sunshine

This week at Baby MacBean we got to take advantage of the beautiful January sunshine here in Benicia, which all of the babies loved! They got to play on the outside toys and it was even nice enough to use the art board and paint with the new spray paint bottles.

Everyone was having a fun time going in and out of the house.

Gabriel exploring the sophisticated workings of the spray paints.

  

 

 

Even though it was nice outside, the sit and spins were also popular.

Baby Tovi finding a new place to play!

 

Everyone at Baby MacBean loves the slides!

And just because it was nice outside, didn't mean that there couldn't be just a little snow somewhere.

Baby MacBean 1st Annual Art Gallery Show

Baby MacBean held the 1st Annual Art Gala this weekend. We've been collecting art samples from the children for the past year and dedicated  wall space for each child to display their art. We hung the art in chronological order so the viewers could see how each child's art changed over the past year (or however long they've been with us).It was so fascinating to see the many changes! From barely making marks with a crayon to drawing heavy and colorful lines to making aggregates (intersecting shapes) to form airplanes and boats! We also hung large posters of the developmental stages of children's art, block building, bead stringing and cutting. We had stations set up for all of these activities next to the posters so parents could see in real time which developmental stage their child was at in their play. We spoke with the parents about how to talk to their children about art (No need for constant praise and "good job") and creative ways they can store the art that will accumulate over the years. It was a great time!

Play dough, crayons, sand oh, my!

Caroline, Joey, Madison, Shay and Ryan have been up to their ears in all sorts of art activities these past few weeks. We picked up these great window crayons from Wal-Mart and the children just love them! The windows clean up easily with a quick spray from the hose, which makes it extra nice. The play dough and sand are big hits, of course, even after the repeated "tasting" - it's all non-toxic so no worries there. :)

Color Time

Joey, Madison and Shay really loved Color Time today! We covered the toddler table with scrap paper and let them each use a special color-wheel crayon. These crayons are super easy for tiny hands to hold and since they have several colors on each wheel we don't end up with piles of crayons all over the floor to clean up. Truly a win-win. :)

Here's a video of how we teach the colors. When children are first learning colors it's important to NOT ask them, "What color is this?" They obviously don't know that yet and these types of questions can lead to disinterest or frustration. We gather solid-colored objects to represent each color, then tell them the color for each object and ask if they can find something else with this same color. this helps them learn associations and that colors can be found in many shapes and sizes and items.