Monday was my last preschool class for this semester.  We had a great time together and I am a little sad that the Monday class is done until the fall.  Today we:

made drawings and then embellished with fabric and sequins,

sewed up lacing cards – each student did many of these.  It was so fun!

And I gave them their pillows.  They painted the fabric last week and I sewed them into pillows to give them on the last day.  They totally LOVED them!!

I have been having so much fun making samples for all the different classes that I teach!

For the studio, I made a sundress and sunglasses case sample for either kids or adults to make.  I might have to make another sunglasses case for the studio as I really like this one!

For the preschool class, I made little wooden looms and people out of used toilet paper tubes.  The students really loved these two activities!

For the tween class, we have a little ladybug bean bag, a woven monster bookmark, a keychain, and several other sewn stuffies that can be bean bags, cat toys or key chains – whatever they want to make.  I had so much fun creating these!

Preschoolers are so much fun!  They love messy art and non-messy art and everything else in between.

We worked on finishing our fabric bowls.  These are the same as the ones we are making with the tween class, just on a smaller scale.

We also did some weaving.  I made little looms out of popsicle sticks and precut some yarn and we were ready!  This project was so much fun.  This project great because it encourages and builds small motor skills.  We talk about different color combinations.  We also talk about the textures and thickness of the yarns which encourages attention to details.  Great crafts – great impacts!

Fridays we are at the Palo Alto Art Center. I can't believe how much fun this class is!

We worked on finishing our fabric bowls.  Our students put the final layer of fabric on the inside of the bowl – next Friday we will roll out our final product!

We also worked on some handsewing and made…

Ladybug bean bags!!

The preschool class on Monday is such a joy to teach. The students are all so excited to participate in all the activities!

We added fabric to the outside our paper mache bowls. Next week we will add fabric to the inside of our bowls and finish them up.

We also made popsicle stick people which was a HUGE hit!! All of the children made multiple people and many of them made families! It was so fun to see what each student did with the materials provided.

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On Fridays I teach a fiber arts class at the Art Center.  It's super fun and the kids are great.Another one not pictured, became a bracelet.  These students have so many good ideas!

Heard in Friday's class: "I LOVE messy art!!". We were creating the base for our fabric bowls our of paper mache and the kids were totally involved.

Stay tuned for next week as we add the fabric!!

We also put on the finishing touches to our rainbow fleece scarves. Everyone made pompoms for the ends of their scarves! Unfortunately, I did not get any finished pictures of this, but they were very pretty and warm.

Fleece scarves! They had so much fun putting these together!

Spool knitting - yes, preschoolers can do this!

Everyone finished their scarves!

Spool knitted bracelet!

The preschool class I teach for the Palo Alto Art Center went very well today!

One of the activities we did was to paint with yarn. We dipped and dragged pieces of yarn through paint and then transferred the paint to our paper in that way.

Some really enjoyed the tactile approach of using their hands and fingers. It was really interesting to see how the students used the supplies provided.

This was the other project. We glued yarn pieces to a background and then attached the cutout over. This was a huge hit! Most of the students made multiples. This was also a good project to practice cutting, following directions and color placement.

The student who created this beautiful piece of art, decided that the frame needed more texture. Such a great idea!

This student was very precise in her yarn placement. Each child approached both the projects differently and had fabulous results.

Here, the student is using his yarn in a pile to paint big swaths of color.

All green!

See the texture in this one? Many strips of yarn were added on top of each other to create this three dimensional artwork - this took quite a bit of time and patience.

Even the adults enjoyed this project!!

I have recently started teaching two classes for the Palo Alto Art Center.  I teach a preschool class and an elementary/middle school age class - both in fiber arts.  Yesterday, I had the pleasure of teaching pre-schoolers.  These students were between the ages of three and five years old and were a delight to have in class.  They were attentive, curious and excited.  I couldn't have asked for better!