3. Underwater Collage
Inspired by the illustrations in a book called Octopus Oyster Hermit Crab Snail, children worked on paper collage pictures of underwater life. After several days, some children had finished their work; some had just gotten started. Because the collage seemed to be a difficult task for many children, I wanted them to share some ideas with each other about how they went about making the various shapes in the pictures.
I gathered the whole group together a morning meeting to look at the finished pictures spread on the floor. We remembered looking at their work in this way before, and I suggested that one reason their earlier squid drawings were so satisfying was that they had shared their ideas about the fish drawings beforehand. I told them that, similarly, we would be looking at their ocean collage pictures to make observations and ask questions about how the artists worked. This might help children who were still working with ideas about how to proceed. After this discussion, some children who had previously considered their work finished decided to go back and work some more in order to try new techniques.