We started this artist study by reading this book about the life of Henri Rousseau. The preschoolers loved this story and spent a lot of time looking at and talking about the cover and the pictures inside the book. We learned that although other artists laughed at Henri Rousseau, he continued to create his own style of art and eventually became one of the most famous artists around the world.
The preschoolers painted versions of Henri Rousseau's paintings using jungle animals and plants for inspiration. This activity gave way to a lot of descriptive language and story telling. This provided a great opportunity to look closer at the patterns in the animal prints. After painting jungle patterns, patterns were popping up all over the classroom in play.
Patterns in the block area:
Rousseau inspired paintings:
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“This is a spaceship and a jungle monster. The jungle monster is trying to get the spaceship and it has a gecko and it is snowing”
-Nolan |
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| I adore this painting...I really was wearing a white and black patterned shirt that day!! |
The preschoolers used what they had learned about jungle animals and Rousseau in their play, writing, and drawings. The result was even more descriptive language and detailed story telling, amazing block structures that represented their ideas, and cooperative play as they went on jungle hunts.
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“This is a map for me and Nolan when we are hunting. Cheetahs are here. This is where the tigers live. This is actually where the zebras live. this is North America and this is South America."
-Henry
“X mark is there. We walk over there then over there. And the X mark is here. It tells us we found our treasure. It’s golden food”
-Nolan
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