- chart paper (long sheet)
- crayons and markers
- paper (large, for individual paintings)
- paints
- paintbrushes
- color
- mural
- shade
MA Standards:
Writing/W.PK.MA.2: Use a combination of dictating and drawing to explain information about a topic.
Head Start Outcomes:
Literacy Knowledge/Early Writing: Uses scribbles, shapes, pictures, and letters to represent objects, stories, experiences, or ideas.
PreK Learning Guidelines:
English Language Arts/Composition 16: Use their own words or illustrations to describe their experiences, tell imaginative stories, or communicate information about a topic of interest.
A World of Color Mural
© Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Early Education and Care (Jennifer Waddell photographer). All rights reserved.
Skill Focus: Color Recognition, Creative Expression, Fine Motor Skills, Vocabulary
Educator Prep: Before the activity, tape a long sheet of chart paper along a wall. Use this to hang the pictures together to create a wall mural from children's drawings.
Tell children that each of them will create one part of a group mural. Explain that a mural is a piece of art created directly on a wall, but today they will create it on a long sheet of paper. Point to the chart paper on the wall and explain that you will hang their pictures together along the wall.
Have children work in small groups. Display photographs of children exploring or pictures of things in nature that they encountered during their explorations. Discuss the pictures.
Then ask children to recreate something in nature that they observed outdoors. Be available to discuss children’s questions and observations about colors, shades of colors, and objects they observed. Discuss the different shades of colors as children work:
- What different shades of colors did you see outdoors?
- What colors were the trees? Were the colors of the leaves the same or different?
When children's pictures are complete, tape the pictures together on the chart paper to make a long wall mural.