webs and bamboo

Inspired by the Museum of Natural History, last week each child chose an animal as a subject for a diorama. Ranger chose a spider, Sachie chose a panda bear, and Silas chose a giraffe. Today we begin by thinking about the natural environments in which these animals live...

Ranger: I know what sorts of environments spiders live in -- webs!
Bianca: How would you make a web?
Ranger: Lots of line!

Ranger moves his pencil back and forth many times quickly -- creating a bundle of lines. He then makes two more bundles on different areas of the paper.

Ranger: These are the webs!


Sachie: I'm looking for the colors that you see in the bamboo!

spotting a giraffe

Bianca: Silas, your giraffe is very tall!
Silas: Yeah -- it goes all the way to the top of the page!
Samara: I see that your giraffe has very tall legs just like the giraffes in the picture, but there's something else that makes giraffes very tall -- do you see what it is?
Silas: Their necks!

Silas erases the head that he has drawn and draws in a long neck and then a head at the end -- then he notices something else...

Silas: They also have spots!

Ranger: Put some orange in! Go all the way all over him!

playing sticks

Silas: Look! I made an instrument!

Ranger: You know what this does? It makes hot air!

Skuli: Hey, I heard a little sound from the one Ranger made!
Ranger (to Silas): When you blow these they fly up into the air, right?
Silas: Yeah!... This one goes around faster and faster and it makes you go up in the air.
Ranger: Yeah and it's electric.
Silas: It makes you go up to the sun!

Ranger: Mine is an instrument and it makes you fly in the air.


Skuli: Mine's a two headed duck. I'm trying to make it bigger -- I'm gonna add another benderoo...

toddler arts

Though the focus of the Cloud Kids site is on our 4, 5, and 6 year old groups, there are many toddlers that come to the Painted Cloud every week too. The toddler arts classes are always so much fun -- these young children are so thoughtful and creative and make amazing art. This week I thought I'd share a few pictures from one of our toddler classes.

reddest red

Today in our Color Theory class we are thinking about the color red. I read a passage from Josef Albers's book Interaction of Color in which Albers discusses color recollection and perception. Albers says that the color red is different for every person: if a group of people are asked to think of the color "red" they will think of many different reds -- even if a group of people all look at the same red object still no one can be sure that each has the same perception.

In a box we have placed six red objects. We ask the children to come over one by one to see these objects and secretly point to the truest red.

Reuben comes over first and picks the red scissors. Mia is next, who picks the red ball of yarn. Finn picks the red feather. Last is Mela who picks the red scissors.