Gymboree Art Class

If you miss a class at Gymboree Play and Learn, you can participate in any class that is offered in your age group as a make up. Ethan has missed a couple of classes due to snow and illness, so he got to try out the art 2 class as his make up. He loved it as can be seen in these pictures.

To start the hour off, children get to free paint. They get to choose the color and where on the wall they want. After painting, the children do their first sit down project that fallows a theme. This week's theme had to do with shapes and textures.

Painting

My little Picasso

The first project involved glue, paper and foil shapes, glitter, and crayons. The glue bottle was a little difficult for Ethan to squeeze, but he stuck with it and was able to figure it out by himself. After he put some glue down on the paper, he took some shapes and glued them on. Then he put more glue on the paper and got some glitter to make the shapes bumpy. He finished off the project by using a cool circular crayon to put more color on his project. In the end, Ethan's project reminded me of a Horiuchi collage.

Glue

Right.....there. Perfect.

Dotting with glue

Glitter and coloring

Watching Teacher Josie hang up the artwork

After everyone was done with the first project, the kids got a snack and listened to a story. The snack was water and animal crackers. The story is made interactive by asking the children questions and having them point out things in the illustrations.

Where's the orange ball? Right here!

After snack time, the children get to do another project. This project involved glue and different foam shapes. Ethan would put a dot of glue on the paper and then put a shape on. The teacher noticed that Ethan was doing a dot of glue and then glue shape on technique, which she said she hasn't seen other kids his age do. Normally she sees little kids glue all over their paper and then start gluing on things. Ethan must be doing this one to one technique because he is has seen Jonathan do it.

I put some glue here and then put the shape on it.

In August, Ethan will grow out of the Play and Learn 6 class, which is the last class in the series. If we decide to continue on with Gymboree, we are going to need to find him a new class. The art class might just be the right fit. At age 3, parents can drop off their child in the art 3 class. There is also a music class, sports class, and school skills class we could choose for him.

 

-Dina