Art!

Each week we will have an art lesson. I picked up the curriculum this summer and it is called Building Motor skills in Art. I really liked how it worked on fine motor skills and did not require a lot of fancy materials. I could make it age appropriate for each of my kids as well with out having to get separate workbooks as well.

The lesson this week was about coloring in the lines.
We first worked with crayons and a coloring page with some geometric shapes on them. You can practice these steps as well. Just make your own paper with a few shapes.

• color in one direction
• color to the line, but not beyond it
• highlight the lines of the shape

After a fine effort on the coloring page, we did a larger project using "do a dot" bingo markers. If you don't have these you can use lots of other things like sponges and some tempera paint or scraps of colored paper. I made a large picture in pencil of the state of Texas on butcher paper. Bigger is better for this kind of project. You could do any shape that works for you. Just sketch it out on big paper and make sure it doesn't have too much detail. Then I let the kids use just a few colors for the inside and a few for the outside of the shape. This was our finish product:

I had it hanging on the wall as we stamped, and I have to say I was very impressed my walls stayed nice and clean!