Like music and movement, art provides a means of expressing feelings and experiences that are hard to verbalize. All kinds of coloring and painting activities give children an opportunity to explore color and to experience the world as painted from a broad palette and variation of hue. We especially recommend obtaining sets of "multicultural" crayons that reflect the broad spectrum of human skin color. This allows all of the children to produce their own skin color and that of everyone else in the class.
Pass the Child (A Mural)
Goal:
To collaborate on a work of art while adding individual touches and preserving others' unique contributions
Materials:
One huge piece of paper; a selection of paints (12 to 16 colors); one paintbrush per color
Process:
This is similar to the above game, only this time each child chooses a special color from the selection of paints. Assign each child a starting place around the big sheet of paper. After she or he paints for several minutes with the particular color, it is time to move to the next section of the mural, where the child continues painting with the same color. This rotation continues until every child has painted once in every section. RULES: No one may paint over anything already on the mural. Children are encouraged to add special touches or their own details to each piece of the mural.
