- Child Mondrian. Just as a term, "neo-plasticism" seems very evocative of our mountainous piles of disposable geegaws, no? Anyway, letting the kids loose with thin strips of black matte paper, white paper, tempera in the primary colors and q-tips or brushes make for a cool project. It goes nicely with a unit on primary colors and hue.
- Child Pollock. A very nice project for the end of the year: make sure to recommend that children wear clothes that can get dirty. All you need is a big space, an old bedsheet and a mess of brushes and paint. Kids enjoy seeing the impact different movements and distances. You can read Action Jackson in advance, too.
- Paper Plate Aquaria/Terraria. Bonus points for using blue cellophane on aquaria.
There are also plenty of projects that kids love and adults can take or leave. These can be very fun; I need to make a list of some of the ones that have gone really well so I can get the materials to do them again.
Something else that is very fun is showing fifteen minutes of The Muppet Show as a five day of excellence whole class reward. I provided fifteen minutes of the Harry Belafonte episode (because the performance of "Turn the World Around" is going to be EPIC and I am experimenting with using Mr. Belafonte as our lead-in to some of our social studies unit (working together, social change, all that)). When we got to the outside door, I invoked my magical teacher skills to turn them all into Animal having a drum off with Harry Belafonte. So they ran out the door beating frenetically on imaginary drums while screaming. From my perspective it was kind of awesome. That perspective would be "waving from the door".
Something else that is very fun is showing fifteen minutes of The Muppet Show as a five day of excellence whole class reward. I provided fifteen minutes of the Harry Belafonte episode (because the performance of "Turn the World Around" is going to be EPIC and I am experimenting with using Mr. Belafonte as our lead-in to some of our social studies unit (working together, social change, all that)). When we got to the outside door, I invoked my magical teacher skills to turn them all into Animal having a drum off with Harry Belafonte. So they ran out the door beating frenetically on imaginary drums while screaming. From my perspective it was kind of awesome. That perspective would be "waving from the door".
your class sounds quite fun
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