Math Collage

Putting together pieces of the puzzle. What is up? What is down? What is in the background? What is in the foreground? These are questions we ask internally as we put together pieces of a puzzle. I look at collage constructions as puzzles. Break down an idea or image into shapes and colors. Explore what is up or down. Express and name the familiar and the new. The end result documents something that is very real to 3 year olds -- School and "this is mine."

Collected pieces. Clockwise from lower left is a bin of shapes the children have cut from large sheets of paper they painted the week before. The shapes represent the parts of the school. Next are tree shapes and leaves. Larger sheets of sky backgrounds with a waiting foam glue brush. Pieces of floral gift wrap and more painted paper for bushes and either the sun or moon (for the bottom and the top of the collage).

Glue wash is applied.

Window shapes are applied. The second to last thing to do is to place the bushes at the bottom and the front of the collage. The very last thing is to give the work a title. The work here was given the title, "Growing Trees."