Exploring Color and Collaborating to Create a Work of Art Together

We had a mini inquiry of color through a collaborative art piece we created for our room.  I set out red, yellow, blue and white paint and some corks to see what they would discover!

They had to learn self control in order to squeeze just a little bit of paint on the plate in order for us to have enough paint for others to explore color mixing.  We have been focussing on self-regulation. Being aware of and controlling our bodies, our mouths, and our impulses to be more deliberate about our actions!  They have come so far with self-regulation since the beginning of the year! 

They discovered a lot about color and shades as they would create a color, paint a cork, then add another color to it to see how it changed! There was a lot of talk about lighter and darker shades as they created new colors and made changes to those created colors!

We practiced sorting skills and data collecting skills as we started graphing the colors in order to see what colors we needed more of. After graphing the corks and getting the information we needed, the kids would pick a color we needed more of and try to figure out how to make more shades of that color.  They had to think and recall and experiment to figure it out!

After creating the graph some would create a color, then take it to the graph to figure out which color it would go with.  The friend below was trying to figure out if his color was more pink or more purple!

Next the kids sorted the colors into groups and ordered the colors from the lightest shade to the darkest shade. This promoted a lot of discussion and collaboration as they asked friends their opinion about whether a color was darker or lighter and which group a particular color might go.  I loved hearing them verbalized their thoughts to each other!

Next they transferred the corks to the base we would be gluing them on to. We looked at a picture of a rainbow on the promethium board and put the colors in the same order. 

We hot glued the corks with a not-so-hot glue gun onto the base. They were very careful using this tool under supervision, though the glue was warm, but not hot.

Here is our finished art piece to remind us of all the colors we could create by just using red, yellow, blue, and white!

Now we have a new problem to solve! They want to hang it in our reading corner! But it is a whiteboard wall! They came up with the idea to use duct tape! Some had the designed duct tape with pictures on it and others had the traditional gray kind. I asked if one kind was stronger than the other. They have decided to bring in their duct tape and we will experiment to see which is the strongest! Whichever duct tape is the strongest will be the one we use to hang up our beautiful art! I can't wait to see what they find out!  I will make sure to post a picture of the finished wall in the reading corner after the art and documentation of the project is up!