Month-To-Month Mural: February

Every month when we pull this canvas off the wall, one of us inevitably says, “I like it so much right now, I don’t want to let them paint over it!” Of course, that’s the other teacher’s cue to respond, “That’s what you said last month.” For February, we decided to add a little dimension to the mural painting process.

First, we mixed up a batch of homemade puffy paint. The recipe is simple; cheapo shaving cream + tempera + a squirt of school glue. The results are a thick, creamy paint that stays where you put it without dripping, marbles rather than turning muddy when mixed, and stays 3 dimensional when dry. Can you tell that we loooooove this paint?

We also changed up the way we presented the canvas. For the last few rounds of mural painting, we have just laid the canvas on the floor for the children to have at it. This time we propped it up against the cabinet, with a spread of multicolored paints and long brushes for the kids to choose from.

I don’t know if presenting the canvas this way was particularly enticing, or if the delicious looking foamy paint was the catalyst, but this round of mural painting was the most popular yet. Every single child stepped up to the canvas and added something to the mix.

One child focused on swirling paint around and around in a circle. “ Look! I’m making a circle! The circle is mixing brown paint!” Another child discovered the edge of the canvas stretcher and spent a long time making sure to cover every inch of paint-less fabric with purples, greens, and blues.

Another child made a very exciting discovery...

If they scraped away the thick layer of foamy paint, they revealed the bright oranges and red’s from our November round of mural painting!

At one point, we flipped the canvas from horizontal to vertical...

...then we turned it 180 degrees from where we began!

A couple of weeks ago, we had a teacher from another school observing in our classroom. She asked what was the reasoning behind the month-to-month mural project. Since we are over a year and a half away from the origin of the project, (this is our second year of doing it) it took a moment of reflection before we found the answer.

Aside from ‘It just seemed like a good idea at the time”, (which I'll readily admit is often the way curriculum is spawned with these fast paced toddler/preschoolers), the concept of revisiting an art project and adding to it over time came from watching how differently children approach a piece of paper or canvas that someone has already left their mark on.

When we set up the easel during our free-play time, invariable we wind up with a piece of artwork that has been painted on the fly, and left on the easel as it’s creator moves on to another activity. Sometimes, a child will ask if its OK to add to the abandoned artwork, sometimes they’ll just go for it. (Interestingly, we’ve rarely had a problem with the original artist taking offense at this. As possessive as toddlers can be, I think their sense of communal property is also pretty innate.)

If you watch how these children approach the process of putting paint to paper, you notice a very clear difference when they are working with a piece that is already established. Their movements become very intentional. They spend more time considering where and how to place the paint on the paper. Sometimes they paint carefully over the existing marks, sometimes they move around them. They really sink into the activity, giving it a new level of attention and focus.

When we teachers talk about the concept our “emergent curriculum”, we often say that our goal in each and every activity is to use what we observe to plan activities that extend the children’s curiosity. When we see a child connecting with their work the way that did with this month’s mural, it feel really, really right!

We almost don’t want to let them paint over it again!