Creative Hats And Sunshine Art

The Henle House dress up cabinet has been filling up with awesome hats from the Hat Shop in Seaside Oregon for about five years now.  Yesterday I thought it would be fun to just pull some of them out for easy access.  Unbelievably, nobody got into them until they were directed to do so.  I thought it would be fun for the kids to wear a "creative hat" during our art time at the table. 

First things first, we have been enjoying group time again! 

A great way to keep preschoolers happy and engaged is to not make the sit still and quiet the whole time.  Have the kids help you with the story by making the animal sounds or repeating with you any repetitive phrases.  Sometimes I like to have the kids all stand up and we play a game of "Wiggle And Freeze".  I just say "Wiggle" and get my wiggles out with them.

"FREEZE!"

They are all much better listeners when they are allowed to use the energy that they have.

Everyone chose a silly creative hat to wear.  I haven't ever done this before, so I wasn't sure if it would be too much of a distraction.  

It wasn't!  They kids worked very well.  We got out some different shades of blue tissue squares to create a summer sky with sunshine.   I encouraged them to try to cover the entire piece of construction paper, which wasn't too daunting because they were working with half of a piece.

I love the new squid hat.  Squids are so weird and scary at the same time.  I couldn't leave that squid hat in the shop.

I love that this group of children enjoys spending time on their projects.  They are all very proud of their creations!  I am, too.

This is the only prep I did for this project.  Older kids could cut out the shapes themselves, but I am terrible at remembering to have them do it.

Something awesome-- I ordered some metallic glitter glue from Discount School Supply.  I LOVE the thin smooth consistency of it.  We usually use glitter glue, which is also smooth, but not nearly as much as the metallic glue.  SCORE!

The kids showed me "just one finger" and used that finger to spread some metallic gold onto their sunshine for added interest.

I can't express how much I love the way these turned out.  Beautiful!!

♥♥♥Happy Wednesday!♥♥♥