In the Art Room: Mother's Day Flower Pots

Our kindergarten students have changed so much this year that their growth reminds me of their blooming flower collages.

There are some folks that just don't get paid enough. These people include egg-inspection factory workers (speaking from experience, thank you very much), corn-detasselers (another item on my resume) and kindergarten teachers. Now, don't get me wrong, I enjoy teaching the littles but I only see them in half an hour intervals. And, sometimes, in that half an hour, I can have one empty his bladder, one start to cry for her mama, one step in said bladder-empty-outter's puddle and one decide to smack me on the tooshie on his way out the door with a "bye-bye, Mrs. Stephens!"

Overheard kindergarten convo: "I got a man's haircut yesterday but I'm still a little boy." Such sweetness, sigh.

Despite all of that, I can see why the kindergarten teachers keep coming back for more. No other group of kids is as enthusiastic about everything under the sun as kindergarten. Every new skill taught is met with an "ohhhh" and an "ahhhh" and often awarded an applause.

Take this Flowery Collage, for instance. We used the left over scraps of textured paper we had created for our Mammoth Monet Mural. For the background, we learned all about creating a tint with primary blue and white when sponge printing. Once that was dry, we chatted about our French friends Claude Monet and Henri Matisse and their love of nature and collage, respectively. And their flowers are simply tres magnifique, no?

Pretty as a petunia.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. You see, the wee ones actually painted these here flower pots before creating their collages. Every year our awesome kindergarten teachers help their students celebrate Mother's Day with a Mother's Day Tea. At the tea, each mom is presented with a handpainted terracotta with a lovely little flower inside.

We only used one 1/2 hour class to complete these. It was a whirlwind of painting fun but next year I think two art classes would be better.

I offered to help the kids paint their pots in the art room this year. I demonstrated on a couple of broken pots how to paint the middle of the flower, or stigma. We chatted about pollen (which is why we are all so sneezy) and nectar. I then showed the kids how to add the petals, stem and leaves and grass. We topped it off with some line designs around the rim.

Remember these? I guess you can see where my idea of having them paint flowers on their flower pots came from...

"My mama is going to love my pot. She's gonna say 'Did you really make it?' " ...adorable

Once the pots were painted, the kids had a big time with the collages because they could see the connection. And because we learned the word "collage" and said it in our funniest French accents complete with a "viola!" after every simple task completed. You see, I told you, it's the little things when it comes to the little ones. As long as we're not peein', cryin' or nose-a-pickin', it's a pretty fun group to hang with.