Art Project - Take 1

This weekend, Mattea and I attempted a little craft project which I had originally seen on the Artful Parent blog (see side bar). The blog had said to use colored rice but I improvised and instead used colored beans. We started by using a protractor and made circles of various sizes. Not much creativity needed - but that would come later. I wanted Mattea to get used to 1) using a protractor and 2) staying inside the lines. After drawing circles, Mattea then used a paintbrush to paint the circles with glue. She did really well and was definitely trying hard to concentrate on keeping the glue inside the pencil lines.

After that task was completed, she was asked to fill in each circle with a specific kind of bean. But - only one variety of bean to each circle - and she had to place them one by one. Once the instruction phase of craft time was completed and she had followed the directions, she was allowed to freely design the bean picture of her choice. She could paint, arrange, place beans in whatever manner she saw fit. The final product was beautiful - no Picasso - but won awards in my book! There is no picture because her sister came along and began plucking the beans one by one from her masterpiece. She too was working on fine motor skills!