Color Wheels

Two summers ago I applied (and got approved) to take an “art class for teachers”. Here is how I justified a Speech Pathologist attending this 3 credit class:

Many children who have speech and language difficulties have other areas of strength. Art incorporates visual and tactile senses and allows for multiple language opportunities. Students can spend time planning their creations, talking about the colors and texture, comparing and contrasting, and retelling the steps involved. Art also helps students to feel successful that they can make something tangible and bring it home to (again) explain their creations.

The reality of taking this class? Don’t tell, but I didn’t know how to keep up with The Flash’s art and continue to challenge his enhance his natural skills.

That said, I really do incorporate many art opportunities into my therapy sessions. But I have to first “practice” them at home.

Here was our family test-run at making clay color wheels as explained by Kiddio ( hat tip to Simple Mom).

First, we followed the recipe to make the clay and formed snowballs. We added color drops and let them sit for 10 minutes before squishing the color inside.

Then we formed our fabulous color wheel. We talked about how the secondary and tertiary colors were formed. If I were to do this activity again, I would have only started with primary colors (and not some secondary colors as the directions suggested).

Finally, we made our clay creations. They took several days to dry, but turned out nicely.

Although most of the items “accidentally” fell into the garbage can, I kept the “cup”, “elephant with water shooting from his trunk” and “turtle pond”. Don’t ask.

This activity pairs extremely well with yesterday’s book Mouse Paint.