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.

Yesterday was the art week in the preschool storytime rotation, and we had a blast.

First I read two books to the large group:  Thing-Thing by Cary Fagan, a sweet story of a stuffed animal of no definable species who is given to a spoiled rich boy.  The spoiled rich boy throws Thing-Thing out the fifth story window in a rage, and the book chronicles Thing-Thing’s fall past floors four, three, and two; Thing-Thing and the reader get to observe little slices of life on each of those floors, interspersed with Thing-Thing’s thoughts as he falls.  I won’t give away the very happy ending to the story, but suffice it to say that the kids really liked the ending.

The second book was one of my favorites, Mr. Pusskins by Sam Lloyd, the story of a very grumpy, ungrateful cat who runs away from his adoring child Emily, only to discover life outside isn’t nearly so much fun.  Mr. Pusskins, of course, comes to regret under-appreciating Emily and wishes he had never run away.  My favorite scene in this story is when Mr. Pusskins calls Emily on the telephone after finding a MISSING poster with his (grumpy) photo and Emily’s phone number.  “Meow?” Mr. Pusskins whimpers into the phone, and adoring Emily immediately knows who he is and comes to get him.

We also did a couple of fun fingerplays, and wrapped up the story portion of storytime with a fingertasting.  I hadn’t used my fingertaster puppet with older kids before – Zebra has been monopolized by the toddlers up till this point – and I was blown away by how much this age group loves the humor and suspense of having their finger tasted.  Zebra tasted only things that cats like today: one child tasted like tuna, another like kibbles, a third like olive oil (Ophy Cat’s favorite thing in the whole world).  We had a great giggly time with Zebra.

And then it was time for process art.  Today’s project:  textured table art, from MaryAnn Kohl’s book Preschool Art.  I spent a bit of time agonizing over whether I needed to set up the tables prior to storytime, or whether I could let the kids really be in on the whole process.  Ultimately I reluctantly decided to set up the tables before the kids arrived, since this is a drop-in storytime with ever-increasing numbers of participating children.  So I laid out four small tables with all kinds of cool things spread out underneath the butcher paper, and presented this project as part mystery (what’s under the paper?) and part art exploration (playing with rubbing the crayons over the objects). 

It was a huge, huge, HUGE success.  Lots of discoveries as kids figured out which items were hidden – shells, paper clips, feathers, leaves, grass, coins – and lots of experimentation with color and pressure.  And what an orderly, wonderful bunch of kids.  I had given a brief introduction to the project while all the kids were still seated on the floor, and had shown them the two types of crayons they might find in the buckets: crayons without any wrappers (perfect for this project) and crayons that still had their wrappers on.  I told the group that if they had a crayon with a wrapper that they’d need to peel it off, and I pointed out the two wastebaskets that they could peel over.  And guess what?  Not a single crayon wrapper ended up on the floor.  Very, very impressive for a large group of four through six year olds, most of whom were in the story room without a parent!

I love, love, love this preschool storytime, and really look forward to it from one week to the next.  And yesterday’s meeting was a particularly wonderful time.