mix masters!

Our friends LOVED painting yesterday.  Today we reintroduced the black and white paint, with a small change.  What would our friends do with their own personal pallette?  What would we notice about the paint swatches?  How would the easels change the experience for them?

These are all questions that ran through your teachers' minds as we set up this invitation to explore black and white.

There was no goal in mind for us.  We were observers.  As always, the process of painting is our goal, not an end product.  

The easels gave our friends a new perspective.  They really noticed the brush strokes on the paper.  We saw children being intentional with their marks - lines, circles, dot-dot-dot, and even drip-drip-drip.  These Birch artists zoomed in on the interaction of the paint and the paper.

And then...they began to notice they were creating new colors!  What are you noticing about this paper with the colors on it? I asked our friends about the paint swatches.  Without exception every friend recognized that black was on one end, white was on the other, and grey - grey- grey...sooooo many greys!  But...they were all different!  How did they make all those different greys if they only have black and white?

Our friends began the journey of creating shades of color.  Though we didn't label it as such, we noticed that some of our greys matched the greys on the paint palette.  Read along, to hear some of the conversations we had!

"I'm making a good picture.  I'm mixing paint together and it is good!" JB

JB, you noticed how the water runs down the paper and changes the look of the paint.  You were experimenting with brush strokes.

"I'm making a robot callipitter.  That is the shell and those are the eyes." E

"He has to mix black and white and white and black and it makes dark!" E

"Look at my water!!!!  It's all colored up." E

"White.  And now black." A

A, you were fascinated by the marks the brush made on you paper.  You made circles and lines.

"I'm making a panda." R

 

"This matches this and this matches this and this matches this!" D

"I'm mixing this and that and got the dark ones and the light one is right here." D

"This one, and I'm trying to make this one.  Add white and black." MT

G you began painting with your water instead of your paint.  I watched as you watched it drop down, down, down the paper.

"It's a house with witches in the sky." H

"I made a castle like this." E (pointing to the paint swatch)

When you look at our finished products you may think they are all just grey paint.  But I see the beautiful process of creating a masterpiece, and I'm so glad I got to experience it with our children today.

What happens when black and white play together?

Play is vital to the growth and development of children. We firmly believe this at Ambrose. What may look like basic play is always purposeful and child lead. It is our job to listen and to notice patterns in play and conversation, in observation and attention. We use what we see to create valuable learning opportunities for each student. Over the past week we have observed many children focus in on colors. Colors they see, colors they know, colors they love, even colors they can make. 

What happens when we take away the "color?" 

 What happens when black and white play together?

I just used a little bit of black and almost no white with a little bit of gray and made this. - R

Looks black and white and black and I made a new color. (Pointing to each color on his paper) - E

If  you get black and white and then you get a new color.

Its black and white and you can gray it but if you mix all the rainbow colors you get all kinds of colors. - JI

I made the earth and this is St. Louis. - JL

I'm making a park. - JA

I made a bear. - A

Black bear on black paper is hard to see. - Ms. Lisa

This is his house, I moves the bear over here! - A

 

This is going to be a rainbow soon. (mixing multiple shades of gray.) - G

It's black and white like a zebra and pandas too have black and white. - D

Mine is a zombie face, zombies faces are gray. - CF

I'm making all the colors. You mixed them. 

This one is gray and this one is kind of black. - JB

This is the magic house and this is the haunted house. Vampires, witches, and ghosts live in here and princes and princesses live in here. - D 

It's getting bluer and bluer and blue... or black and white make a dark, dark, dark, dark. - C

We cannot wait to see where this study takes us. Will be study black and white or will we move towards more color? Stay tuned with the Birch Room to find out.