Thursday, July 29, 2010

Beach Books and Art

I recently hosted another coffee shop story hour, and we had a beach/ocean theme.  These are the books I read:

All You Need for a Beach by Alice Schertle,

On the Seashore by Anna Milbourne and Erica-Jane Waters,

I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean by Kevin Sherry, and

Ladybug Girl at the Beach by David Soman and Jacky Davis.

After we read and discussed the books, the children all had fun creating their art.  I purchased sandpaper from Dollar Tree (12 sheets for $1.00!) and each child got one sheet.  I told them the sandpaper represented the sand at the beach and they were going to finger paint the ocean over part of the sand.  I gave them each a drop of dark blue paint and a drop of light blue paint and they mixed the two together to create the ocean.  Finger painting on sandpaper is a fantastic sensory activity for children of all ages.


Then, they added ocean stickers and used markers to add details like the sun, beach blankets, umbrellas, sand castles, etc. 



Thank you to Michelle from A Mommy's Adventures for inspiring this art project and for telling me where to buy the sandpaper!  Also, in case you were wondering, the super cute aprons the children are all wearing are also from Dollar Tree.  Thank you to the Moms who gave me permission to photograph and post pictures of their children. 

I am linking this post to stArt (story + art = a great start) at A Mommy's Adventures.

8 comments:

Lynn said...

Super fun! I am impressed that you were brave enough to break out the fingerpaints at a public coffee shop. I host a monthly craft club too, and I have been really reserved about the mess factor. I have to get over it, because it's limiting our activities. On a related note, one of my favorite easy all ages crafts is to get inexpensive paper stock dolls from Michael's craft store and let the kids decorate them with googly eyes, clothes, markers, yarn hair, etc. My son loves doing them.

Rebecca said...

Ive never seen any of those books but they look great!

Ticia said...

I want to join your art group!

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

Must... stop from going to a Dollar Tree now :) What a great project and wonderful books too. I am adding some of them to our reading list.

Annette W. said...

They were so proud! Awesome work! I agree that it's cool you broke out the messy stuff!

Jenny said...

What a neat project. I would have never thought of painting on sandpaper, those turned out so cute!

Charlene Juliani said...

We recently read I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean too. Cute book! Love all the pics.

Nathan's craft apron came from the dollar tree too...his is orange and everytime he wears it, I'm reminded of the Home Depot aprons hahaha!

Love the Dollar Tree!

Michelle said...

I love how all of the different projects came out!! It looks like all of the children had a great time. I am so glad that you were able to find the sandpaper and use this project with your group. The ocean animals stickers that you had them use are really cute, where did you find them?

Thank you for linking up to stART :0)