More Earth Day Art

The children are loving this art activity which I came up with while putting together other Earth Day lessons.  I came across some 3 inch circles which I had saved from a craft we did at Christmas time (yes, I am a saver of things...).  They came from the inside of paper plates which we had used to make wreaths.  At the time, I decided to save the remaining circles for, "something down the road."  Also, I had saved the scraps of black card stock from when I cut the "frames" for our bean mosaics (which you can see here set up on the shelf).  The thought came to me that we could use chalk pastels on the white circles in green and blue to represent land and water.  Once the Earth part is complete, the child can then paste it onto the black card stock.  Voila!  Recycled Earth art made from scraps - they are beautiful. 



Materials:  White circles and black card stock (in shell-shaped napkin holder); small jar with light-colored crayon (to write name on black paper) and gluestick; wooden bowl with green and blue chalk pastels.



This is what is in the shell-shaped napkin holder...



Using the chalk pastels with the materials set up at a table (the newsprint protects the table).

 Most of the children had to wash their hands from the chalk pastels before gluing their Earth to the black paper.  Many of them enjoyed the simple process of blending the colors together with their fingers.  Here is what they look like hanging in our hallway (with the Earth Day Craft).

 
My favorite part about the entire activity is that such beautiful art was created using items we already had!