Construction Art

Our classroom is currently immersed in the middle of our construction unit. You saw from one of our blog posts a few weeks ago how we integrated this unit into our sensory table. Our students are still happily playing with the construction sensory bin and loving it!

Today we introduced a new activity in our art center that combines art, math and construction. The activity originally came from the Frog Street Pre-K curriculum, but we have tweaked it through trial and error to fit our classroom. The Frog Street activity called for students to create an AB pattern by stamping  different types of screws, Phillips head and flat head, into paint and then onto paper. I tried this last year using real screws as prescribed but found they were a little too small and it was difficult to see the difference in the screws.  I really liked the concept of the activity but needed a different type of screw to get the desired effect. We have a set of large plastic screws with different shaped heads in our classroom and decided to try those and see how they would work. They ended up working so well we decided to do the same activity with our class this year.

To do this activity in your classroom you will need manila paper cut in half to create long strips, plastic screws with differing heads and tempera paint. Each student gets to pick two screws they want to use to create their pattern, dip the heads into tempera paint and stamp them onto the paper, alternating each one to create an AB pattern. Here are a few pictures of the process:

The activity is super easy to recreate and each student really enjoyed creating their own pattern. My favorite aspect of the whole process is the opportunity to reinforce the concept of AB patterning in the art center. We hope you will try this activity in your classroom and share the results with us in the comments!

-Heather & Angie