Masks......Finished

 Last week we painted the plates with the eye holes cut in them. This week we used the fancy scissors to cut shapes out of the shiny paper.  We glued feathers on.  We used glitter.  We added streamers.  What fun!

Mask Making

When trying to come up with ideas for preschool lessons, I try to integrate with what they are studying in their classes or what is going on in the world around us.  Since today was Mardi Gras, I decided to go with the idea of mask making.  Little kiddos LOVE masks and pretending, so I knew they'd love this lesson.

I tried finding a child friendly video on Mardi Gras on YouTube, but either they were adult oriented videos or they were........well.........dull.  I did find one cute video on animals wearing masks.  I linked to it on the following post.  I ended up not mentioning the current holiday and just went with "masks."  (So much for tying in with what's going on in the world.  Oh well.)

The kids loved the video and begged to watch it twice.  I pointed out the different types of masks in the video and we talked about what we saw.

Prior to their arrival, I had cut out big eye holes in paper plates.  The children painted the plates however they wanted.  Next week we will add other goodies.  Glitter?  Feathers?  Streamers?  Shiny papers?  We'll see what I can find around that looks fun to add.

I'll add photos of the finished work next week.

Whos behind the mask

I'll be using this video today as an introduction to masks.  I will post photos and info after we do the lesson.

Drug Out by Dragons

Looking at my photo disk, I am surprised to see so many dragon photos. There are more dragon lessons that I did not even photograph. Chinese New Year coincided with the third grade study of China this year so there were lots of opportunities for the dragon as subject matter.

Preschoolers made Chinese dragon masks, which all together looked like one big dragon costume.

Third graders made Chinese brush paintings of dragons and foil repousse dragons, for which I have no photos. Ugh.

This dragon puppet was a "door knob lesson." (That means you think of the lesson as you are shutting the door after they arrive.) I had a lesson prepared other than this, but when 3/4 of the class was missing because of testing, I had to think of something fast. This was it.


Art Club kids made clay animals and many chose dragons.



Kindergarten dragons. (Those red tree-like things are firecrackers.)






A third grade teacher asked me to help her think of something she could hang in the hall outside of her classroom. Since they were studying Ancient China, I had her kids work in groups to create dragon murals. These are 5' - 6' long. I suggested that she cut these off of the background and mount them on another paper, or paint the background.






I think I am "dragoned" out now.