ISO art project ideas that a preschool class can create

[cmo]

Our preschool's annual fundraising event is coming up, which includes a silent auction. In addition to donated goods & services, each classroom is asked to make an art project that will be part of the auction. Parents generally do most of the coordinating for the project so as not to overwhelm the teachers. Past items I can remember are painted furniture (with kids' handprints or self-portraits), photography collages, canvas bags w/artwork on them, etc.

If anyone has any ideas to share, we'd be so happy to try something new!

Thanks,
Chris

[JTsMom]

familyfun.com is a great place to find stuff like that. A couple of ideas off of the top of my head- decorated candles, picture frames or albums, framed artwork, something edible- like applesauce or rice krispie treats, maybe some type of really simple jewlery. I remember my little brothers making decorative soap in Kindy one year- they somehow glued/decoupaged (sp?) pictures to bars of soap, then attached it to a ribbon.

I looooooooove this kind of stuff! LOL

[janeybwild]

For a group item, I've seen a bookcase and a kids size table/chairs that was really cool (and highly prized by the auction goers). It had handwritten sayings/drawings on a theme (friendship or love I think) from each child in the class and signed by each one decoupaged on. I don't think it was that hard to do. They used a donated bookcase that they stripped and a cheap unfinished kids table and chairs that looked like a million dollars when finished.

[Pennylane]

We did some really pretty big terracota flower pots for a preschool auction. We used the childrens fingerprints to make butterflys and then a teacher finished up the decorating. They turned out beautiful!

Ann

[american_mama]

Not sure how this would work, but my sister once did a project that had parents going crazy when she was a day care teacher. It does take a lot of advance work.

Basically, you take museum quality paintings of children and re-create them using the classroom children, costumed and posed to mimic the paintings. Then you photograph the kids and frame the pictures.

They did theirs as a fairly elaborate unit on art spread over days and weeks. My sister previewed the local state art museum for kid paintings, picked ones that would match their group of kids, bought postcards of the paintings in the gift shop, scoured her houses and friends for props and costumes, then staged and took the photographs. I think finding the costumes was the hardest part, especially since they really needed to fit the kids to look good. The kids enjoyed it. They printed the photos, kids enjoyed looking at them, then they went on a field trip to the art museum to see the real paintings. The kids were running up to paintings saying "It's Liza! It's Liza!" so the photos really personalized the paintings to them.

Then my sister mounted the photos (probably just on cardstock for their purposes) and displayed them and the painting postcards at a parent open house. The parents were bonkers for it, wanted to buy them, told my sister she should go into business.

Speaking of which, that's another idea. She also made "story cans" that parents were bonkers to buy. She took clothes pins (maybe the old kind without springs, don't remember) and decorated them to look like characters from a well-known story or fable (yarn hair, felt clothing, sharpie marker faces). She placed them in an empty coffee can with no decoration, very plain, and shook it around at circle time, saying "What's inside here? What is it? A STORY is inside!" The kids and parents really liked them, especially the nativity story one.

My sister was a pretty awesome day care teacher.