Tidying Up OUR Art

As we inquire into systems of organization in kindergarten we joined with our Primary Arts Specialist to look at how and why we can organize through art.  We thought about why artists make decisions about art, color, line and why they make decisions about their art.

They created collaborative art pieces during their time with her and during this time she also introduced the book, Tidying Up Art, Ursus Werli. This made me think about out our collabroative EAL Story/Art, The House with Thirteen Stories.  (See blog post) I asked my students to go back to and look at our story, that was still hanging on the wall. I asked...

How can we tidy up our art?

Each child took their own personal "story" and cut each piece of their story. In my different EAL group lessons we began organizing the cut objects into categories. 

Numbers. Windows. People. Stairs. Animals. Big Things. Things Inside the Home.  Snowflakes. etc...






We cut and glued. Organized, sorted, discussed and created a new piece of art. Each child then reflected on the final piece of "tidied up art." They were asked, what do you notice now? How did we organize it and why? Language was scaffolded throughout the process and thus they were able to describe and discuss independently once we finished the project. 


"We make organize it! Boys with boys, girls with girls and baby with baby" - Kseniia

"The biggest to the tallest snowflakes." Alex

"Yellow with Yellow, Black with Blaek, orange with orange" - Gennady

" We are cutting and gluing papers. Animals are big, small, small, small, small, small big, small, big, very small." Kristians

The numbers 0 to 13. 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0." - Alex



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