let them have tape!

Tape is one of those materials we stow in our desks and out of reach of curious little hands.  I say let them have tape!  For these tape drawings we looked at the work of 20th century abstract artist Piet Mondiran  , best known for his grid paintings.  These kindergartners were then given long strips of pre-cut tape that I stuck to their desks.  They had the choice of cutting the tape down to the length they wanted.  I limited the colors to red, yellow and blue and demonstrated before they started how to create basic geometric shapes (squares, rectangles, triangles) by connecting and overlapping strips of the tape.  It was also great seeing them help eachother carefully lay down the tape so it wouldn't get out of their control.  I used electrical tape from a 99cent store but colorful masking tape would be great too because it is much easier to tear.

Contact Paper Collage

This may have been one of my favorite projects all year.  It is a really good one day project with little to no mess or clean up and a great way to use scrap and tissue paper.  The subject of these sculptural collages was Spring, though it could go in so many other directions.  Students got pieces of contact paper that I precut into 8 1/2in by 22in (more or less) sheets.  They were told to fold a crease in the middle and lay the paper open with the sticky side up.  They then peeled away the protective sheet to the crease and were given little pieces of tape to secure each corner to their tables.  At this point, half of the sticky paper is exposed and half is still protected.  On the sticky side, students arranged scraps of tissue paper to create Spring landscapes.  When they were finished, they removed the other half of the protective paper and folded this half over to cover the exposed tissue paper collage.  The finished pieces were kind of magical; students were surprised and amazed that they had created art that they could see through and enjoy from both sides.  Also great was that they had to help each other manipulate and fold the sheets of contact paper.  These would be beautiful hanging from a mobile or in front of windows.