MAKE flower art
Related to the Nature Time episode, “Make Flower Art with Garbanzo”
Season: Spring, Summer
Time: 45 minutes
Children benefit from art in many ways: it helps develop their fine motor skills, learn new words, think critically and creatively. Working with materials found in nature can challenge them to come up with new ideas and express themselves in different ways.
Making flower smash art can help children:
Recognize the purpose of colors in nature
Develop fine motor skills and hand-eye coornatiion (holding the hammer, pounding)
Learn about using tools safely and purposefully
You Will Need:
Gathered flowers & leaves
Wax paper
Thick paper, like watercolor paper OR cardstock
Small kid-sized hammer
Foam board or cardboard to help absorb sound from hammering
Tape
A Song to Sing: Red, orange, yellow, green. Blue, violet, smash and see!
What To Do:
Take a walk with your child around your neighborhood or local park. Mindfully collect a variety of flowers, leaves, and grasses. Encourage your child to look closely at each flower and leaf. What colors are they? How do they feel? How many petals can they count? Talk about how colorful flowers help attract pollinators.
When you get home, set up an art nature station. Place the paper on top of one piece of foam. Try arranging the collected flowers and leaves in different patterns on the paper. Once your child is happy with their arrangement, cover it with wax paper. Tape the wax paper to the table or foam board to make sure it doesn’t move around when smashing.
Demonstrate to your child how to hammer, explaining that this action transfers the color from the flowers and leaves onto the paper. The longer you hammer, the brighter the colors on the paper will be.
Stand by as your child hammers away, checking ocassionally to see if the color is transferring to the paper. Sing as you create: "Red, orange, yellow, green. Blue, violet, smash and see!"
Once your child is happy with the colors on the paper, they might want also use markers, crayons, or paint to outline the design or add to the print.
Reflection: Today, I made art using...
Have your child share about their artwork, what they used to create it, and how they felt making it.
We hope you had fun together! Want to share? Snap a photo and share it with us on Instagram.