Expressive Painted Monkeys
Today I worked with our Science and Sustainability teacher, Dianne, with the five year olds in the Pātangatanga Hub. The students spent half the day with me doing art and the other half of the day doing cooking and science activities with Dianne.
The students made monkeys today based on the story 'Grumpy Monkey’ by Suzanne and Max Lang. I found the inspiration for this lesson over at Deep Space Sparkle.
First the students watched a video of the Grumpy Monkey story. We talked about emotions, moods and facial features. The students drew a monkey hanging from a branch and drew an expression of their own choosing for the monkey’s face. Some were happy, some sad and other monkeys were excited.
The students had a wonderful time using the dyes to cover the overlapping, repeating leaves in the background of their artwork. Crayon/pastel resist remains one of my all time favourite things to do with students. It is simple yet so beautiful and the students always get a kick out of pushing the wet dye around the paper.
When the dye was dry the students painted their monkeys using tempera block paints. We only had one brown colour of tempera paint. The students thought it would be boring to have the tree branches and the monkey all the same colour so I showed them how to mix orange, yellow and red with the brown to create different types of browns.
The finished monkeys are so very cute. I have pegged them up in the classroom and they look just like they are hanging from branches in a jungle. It is an inviting scene, lots of cheeky little monkeys all in a row!
