Kinders "Do" Monet

I love teaching the little guys about Claude Monet. There are quite a few children's books about Monet, but one that we really like is "Philippe in Monet's Garden". The story is about a frog who will be frog legs unless he finds a habitat where the chefs will not find him!

Alas he finds the serenity of Monet's Garden and he becomes a "regular" in Monet's "Waterlillies" series. We are able to talk about the artist, and a frog's habitat, which is a benchmark in Kindergarten.

You will need:
For the background:
"Cool Colored" oil pastels (greens, blues, purples)
Cool Colored watercolor paints

For the waterlilies:
4x6" green construction paper (pre-cut)
3-4 coffee filters for each child
washable markers

Procedure:
I teach the students about cool colors while creating the background, or the "water" for this project. I have them draw wavy lines using green, blue, and purple oil pastel. They then use watercolor to paint "stripes" over the oil pastels. I want to be sure they don't color in the waves, that they color right over them! This usually takes and entire day.

On day 2 I give each child 4 pieces of 4x6 green construction paper and 4 coffee filters. Using washable markers (yes, we are Crayola fans here!) they use HOT colors (red, orange, yellow, pink) to color the outside edge of the coffee filter as well as the center of the filter. Yes, this bleeds through onto the table, so we like to do this on a piece of newsprint!

When finished, cut out the lily pads. They are an oval shape with a small triangle cut out of them! Glue the lily pads on the paper in various places. Then, scrunch up your flowers (similar to making Mexican flowers from tissue paper) and glue them on top of the lily pads.

The result? Well, judge for yourself! I think they're beautiful and very representative of Claude Monet's lilies!

Happy creating!