Fireplace Invitation to Create

As an Experience Early Learning Blog Ambassador, we receive the Experience Early Learning preschool curriculum in exchange for sharing our honest and authentic stories resulting from our personal experiences. As always, our opinions on amazing things for children are 100% our own. Keep in mind that all preschoolers do things in their own time and on their own terms. What one is ready for, another might not be. Please use your best judgement when planning activities for your children.

The week between Christmas and New Year's meant wrapping up Winter in the Woods and the children enjoyed a wonderful Fireplace Invitation to Create Process Art Experience.

This theme has been so wonderful and we've really enjoyed exploring forest animals and woodlands, winter gear, and other fun topics with Experience Early Learning (formerly Mother Goose Time).

The preschoolers had the opportunity to create some amazing fireplace art and learn about color mixing while they were at it!

Process art is great because it encourages creative thinking and problem solving skills. You can learn more about why we love process art here.

Each one of the Invitation to Create Process Art Experiences that come with our preschool curriculum includes an inspiration photo. These gorgeous, full-color pictures are great for displaying in your art center.

Generally we hang the inspiration photos on our art cabinet while the children are working.

We also receive instructions for setting up the invitation to create as well as prompts for discussing the topic with the preschoolers.

Experience Early Learning (formerly Mother Goose Time) has done an amazing job of coordinating these process-based art activities with our daily topics.

• What colors do you see in the flames?

• Will you use your hands or a sponge to stamp flame prints on the paper?

• How can you use the sponge to paint bricks on the paper?

Those were just a few of the questions that we discussed during this process art experience.

I love that the experiences included in each of the Teacher Guides that we get with our preschool curriculum encourage the children to think critically and creatively.

We also took advantage of the opportunity to learn about color mixing.

• What happens when you mix the paint colors together?

As I was putting each child's paint into the souffle cups, I asked them what color I was adding (red, yellow) and what happens when we mix them together (red + yellow = orange).

After I added a bit of red and yellow into the third souffle cup, each preschooler got the opportunity to mix together the colors and tell me about their observations.

Such a beautiful array of fire colors, don't you think? I love how every child's art is unique. While they each used the same materials, no two look exactly alike.

Experience Early Learning (formerly Mother Goose Time) has done a beautiful job of putting together a wonderful, play-based program that's not only easy to implement, but fun too!

The preschoolers are loving the wide variety of activities that are included with our preschool curriculum each month and especially the Invitation to Create Process Art Experiences!

Don't forget to visit next week to see what we're up to with January's Baby Animals theme!