I feel like I’m writing too many posts on the fabulous art projects from MaryAnn Kohl’s book Preschool Art, but we just finished another phenomenonally successful preschool storytime that used one of her projects.  Today’s choice:  “Stomped Foil Sculpture,” chosen because I didn’t have enough time earlier this week to really plan for today’s storytime.  I had foil, I had paper, and I had masking tape, and this seemed like an easy last-minute project.  I have to admit that I was a wee bit skeptical, though, and wondered whether it would hold the kids’ interest.

I should know better – Kohl’s book hasn’t failed me yet, and today was beyond fun.  I started off by stomping on a piece of balled up foil myself, and talked to the kids about stomping away from your friends so that no fingers or toes would get hurt.  Then I showed how to loop a piece of masking tape (there were several kids who had never done that before), and then let them loose with a piece of paper, a pile of tinfoil sheets, and pieces of pre-torn masking tape stuck all over the edge of the countertop. 

We went through 100 square feet of tinfoil, and the sculptures that came out of that room were inspiring.  Some of the kids stuck to the stomped idea, and stuck mostly rounded balls of tinfoil on their paper.  One girl wrapped her piece of paper in tinfoil, and then built it up piece by piece until there was a tinfoil tunnel and a story to go with it.  A boy went completely freeform, and constructed a tinfoil ornament that he’ll be able to hang when he gets home.  Another girl built a boat out of tinfoil, and made two figures to go in it, a boy and a penguin – inspired by the book I’d read aloud just before the art project, Oliver Jeffers’s Lost and Found.  Yet another girl used a sheet of tinfoil as her base, and attached a tinfoil handle to it.  And a younger boy mastered the art of making tape loops, and had a grand time putting his new skill to work on multiple sheets of paper.

We didn’t finish up until the last piece of tinfoil was gone, and that was an hour after we had started the project.  I’m sure that the creations would have continued if the supplies hadn’t run out.  Yay, yay, yay.  What complete and total fun.