Work Trays 2

 I noticed that the art work had two distinct branches, paper work and painting work.  I want to share about painting work and fine motor work in this post.  It was interesting to watch the work progress from vertical, on a table top, to horizontal, on an easel.  Also, children get to work with different mediums within the painting work: painting with tempera paint, painting with watercolors, sculpting with a paint/flour mix, and painting on an easel. The fine motor work that children do helps them be successful at the painting work and other kinds of work (sewing, piercing, more academic work).  This website has been helpful in learning more about the art work: https://montessori-art.com/ultimate-guide-to-montessori-painting/

Painting Work:

• Painting work:
• 3 small jars of tempera paint (one tray had red, orange, and yellow and the other tray had green, blue, and purple)
• paint brush (full sized brush)
• laminated pictures of natural items to paint (mainly flowers)
• stand up napkin holders are used to hold the paper choices and various sizes (red or black paper)
• small empty jar for students to fill partially with water to rinse their brush in or to mix two colors together in.
• Easel work:
• easel has two magnetic strips along the top along with two round magnets.  The children remove the round magnets and hold their paper up to the magnetic strips and then place the round magnets to hold their paper up.  
• this is such a great way for the children to be independent! I am going to switch out the binder clips on my classroom easel for magnets to help the children switch out their own painting papers.
• paper for the easel work is kept in a small wire basket (like small trashcan sized) and there are only 3-4 sheets of paper available per day.  The paper comes off a large roll of white paper that can be used for a variety of things in addition to pointing.  The paper is 14 inches wide. 
• paint is kept in small squeeze bottles.  Red, yellow, blue watercolor paints are available on this day.  Each bottle has a pin in the top as a stopper.
• the paint and several empty jars are kept on a long tray under the easel along with the paint in squeeze bottles
• children can squeeze a small amount of paint in a jar and use the color as is, or they can add water to it to dilute it, or they can mix it with another colors
• if the children decide they would like another color, they can rinse the jar out and mix a new color.  
• also available is a small brush
• the children use the materials respectfully and do not waste the materials because they are offered in a small amount for the children
• Sculpting Work:
• the tray contains three small jars of paint (red, orange, yellow), a small empty jar, a jar with a small amount of flour, a small paint brush, and a diamond shaped palette knife, and a laminated picture of a sunflower
• the child first painted a simple picture of a sunflower and then began by combining a small amount of red and orange paint in the empty jar with a bit of flour and mixed that together until it was more like a paste.  She then used the shape of the palette knife to help make a circle, the center of the sunflower.  Next, she added more yellow to the mixture and more flour to mix a color that matched the petals in the picture and then spread out that mixture in the shape of the petals.  Her sunflower was beautiful and I could tell by observing that she was very practiced at this work in particular as she knew exactly how to manipulate the palette knife on the paper.  
• Painting work:
• 3 small jars of watercolor paint with droppers (one tray had red, orange, and yellow and the other tray had green, blue, and purple)
• paint brush (full sized brush)
• laminated pictures of natural items to paint (mainly flowers)
• stand up napkin holders are used to hold the paper choices and various sizes (red or black paper)
• small empty jar for students to fill partially with water to rinse their brush in or to mix two colors together in
• children dropped several drops of watercolor paint on the paper and used the brush to move them around the paper.  A child could also fill a small condiment cup with two colors and some water to mix them before painting, or could just use the condiment cup with one color or just water.  Lots of choices available for children to be able to choose how they will paint.

Fine Motor Work: (which after researching, this work falls under the Practical Life umbrella of work) I found out more about practical life work here, https://masterthemontessorilife.com/practical-life-skills-montessori-cutting-practice, along with the other areas of work and that has been very helpful. It does contain lots of ads and pop-ups, but the information has been helpful in giving me some guidance. 

• Cutting work:
• plate with deep sides with a small bowl, scissors, and squares of paper (4x4 sized). 
• each 4x4 paper has spirals or continuing triangles drawn on them, from largest to smallest in the middle.  
• the children cut on the spiral or triangular lines to form one long strip of paper.  
• once children had cut that paper, they had two choices, they could take it home or they could cut it into small pieces and add the paper to the recycling can in the classroom
• the designs seemed to be drawn on scraps of paper, every part of every paper is used to its fullest extent
• Dough work:
• tray with 2 cookie cutters and a jar of dough, plus a work mat
• children push and flatten out the dough (later they find a rolling pin) and cut out shapes with the cookie cutters. 
• Digging Box
• there is a planter box in the outdoor classroom space that is 4 ft x 4 ft sized and children can change into their rain boots and dig with small shovels inside the box
• this is much more interesting work than digging in a traditional sand box, as the children dig further, they are able to find worms and pillbugs and all sorts of other things in the dirt. 
• children are encouraged to dig all times of year so that they find different things and dig in dirt of different consistencies