Texture Collage

The Fall “semester” of our Art Playgroup started this week!  My goal is to include a little more instruction and discussion with the kids and parents about their projects as we work on them, in preparation for the art classes I plan to teach as part of my dream business.  I’ll discuss why that didn’t quite go as planned in tomorrow’s Life With a Spirited Child post (ahem!).

This Texture Collage was one of our projects this week, and I had a blast picking out all of the materials for this project!  I’ve seen this idea in a couple of books and blogs, most recently on Teach Preschool.  Each child was given a selection of textured bits and pieces to use for a collage, and I had larger texture samples in the middle of the table to pass around and explore (that part didn’t quite happen).  We glued the materials to cardstock to keep the collages nice and sturdy.  I explained the meaning of “texture,” and encouraged the kids to talk about the scraps as they felt them and glued them down.  We talked about words like bumpy, furry, soft, rough, smooth, spongy, and squishy.  We also discussed which texture was our favorite.  It would also be fun to discuss textures we DON’T like.  (I don’t like sponge or cotton balls.)  The materials included:

• aluminum foil
• cotton makeup pads (with different textures on each side)
• flannel
• bubble wrap
• sandpaper
• corrugated cardboard
• scrapbook paper with a raised velvet design
• crocodile print paper
• microfiber cloth
• fake fur
• sponge
• and a raised-tin-design paper