learning about absorption

If I don't stop posting our art/school projects, I am going to have to change the name of this blog.  But, this is life.  And, not much else is going on right now.  We have three weeks until we leave for the US.  We are very excited about that.  We will be there for a month!  So, we have been busy thinking about what we want to do there and what Halloween costumes we need to buy!  And, of course, I have been spending money like I have a money tree in my backyard. 

Anyway, today we did another fun art/science project that I found on Pinterest.  You can find the link here.

We took glue, salt and watercolors and made pretty pictures.  I did join in on the fun to show the girls how gently they needed to squeeze on the glue bottle.  And, how to control how much salt went on the picture.

Here they started to draw their pictures with the glue.

Once that was done, salt was sprinkled on top of the wet glue.
 

Here are all of our works of art before we started painting them.  Yes, my art skills peaked in the first grade!

Then, we cleaned up the table to bring out the watercolor paint.  This is where we introduced the word absorption.  We talked about how the salt was absorbing the watercolors.  The girls were thrilled when they would put the paint brush on one spot and the color spread out where the salt was.  Almost like MAGIC! :)

Emily, at this point, worked another lesson into our project.  She wanted to mix colors and make new ones.  She was making purple here.  As you will see on her finished picture, she experimented a lot with mixing colors.  This one is a curious child.  She will create a mess in a heartbeat and it doesn't bother her in the least.

Bella, on the other hand, has to stick to clean, non-abstract drawings.  It is very typical of her.  Often she tells Emily that the way she is drawing/coloring something is wrong.  I always tell Bella that Emily is using her imagination and whatever Emily chooses to do is fine.  It isn't as easy for Bella to accept that.

Here they are showing you their finished pictures.
 

We put them all outside to dry. 

This was a very fun and successful project.  Even with all the salt everywhere, it wasn't too messy of a project.  I would definitely suggest trying this one for yourself.