Animal Collages

This is the first example my two-year-olds created.

  

I don't think I know a single preschool teacher who doesn't adore Eric Carle.  His wonderful stories and colorful illustrations are a staple of my classroom and my lesson planning.  This past week, I decided to try out some animal collage ideas based (loosely) on Eric Carle's fabulous illustrations.  Some of my kids worked with a couple of layers, creating a backgrounds with paint, and then coloring their animal shape with craypas...

My one-year-olds worked with a pre-traced animal shape and collage paper.  Once they were finished decorating the paper, I cut the animal shapes out to create a clean edge...

...Preschool traced their own animal shapes and used a combination of collage elements and craypas.  They were encouraged to work on their cutting skills with teacher supervision...

And my class created their background with crayons, then designed their animals...

Pre-K had a more open-ended project.  They created their own animal shapes, and worked with decorated paper to develop a background.

Here's the whole thing on the ol' art wall.  I love how all of the different styles of work compliment each other, and I'm excited for more collage-based projects in the future!