Preschool Collaborative Art: Reggio Inspired Stitched Drip Drop Cotton Rounds Classroom Tree Project

This multi-day art project was not only a wonderful opportunity for children to build on their exploration of the beauty and science of trees; it was also an opportunity to strengthen collaborative social skills, make predictions, practice color identification, color mixing, creative expression, math concepts (such as counting, comparing, contrasting, shape recognition, and sorting), as well as exercise important pre-writing fine motor skills.

Children painted by using pipettes to drip watercolor paint onto cotton rounds.  The rounds were then set on paper towels to dry. 

At the next class, the children were excited to see the dry rounds, and also the beautiful result left on the paper towels (we actually framed the paper towels.)

The children were shown how to carefully use needle and thread to stitch the cotton rounds, and they were invited to work together to create lengths of garlands embellished with buttons, sequins, and beads.

The garlands are now hanging on our 3D tree at the classroom journaling table.