Puzzle

For the month of July I chose a playing theme. I wanted the projects we worked on to be something they could play with later on instead of hanging it on a wall and forgetting about it. I wanted to show students that there are other things you can do when you draw and paint and those things can be games/toys you can use over and over again. 

The 4 year old students worked on stickers and they worked on puzzles. The puzzles took us two weeks to finish. 

On the first week students worked on starting their puzzle. They each got an A2 sized paper that I had drawn lines on the back that would be easy for them to cut later. They wrote their name and class on every space so their pieces would not get mixed with their friends and we could always locate them easily. 

We drew a simple tree with flowers, a bee and a butterfly together. We went step by step to make sure no one drew a swirly tornado or drew two lines and called it a day. I also like to draw with the 4 year old students step by step because they can learn how basic shapes like circles and triangles can be used to start our drawings. Additionally, they are very excited when they are able to draw a tree and a flower and they accurately look like a flower and a tree.

When we finished drawing we used markers and crayons to color. The students know I have standards on what is appropriate coloring and what is messy coloring. They know they need to stay inside the lines and use different colors to represent different parts of different drawings. Many times, the younger students use only one color for their whole picture.

When we finished coloring, this took us the end and start of two classes, students turned their paper over and cut over the lines I had drawn. 

Once students finished cutting, they turned the pieces around and started putting the puzzle together. This project was also a hit!