Sensory Light Table: Paul Klee Shape Activity

We've been having a lot of fun with our new light panel. Not all of the activities we've been doing with it are art or craft related so I'm torn with sharing them here because I don't want to lose the focus of this blog. I may just throw the random activities into one post just so you can see what else we've been up to with the light panel. I've been trying to figure out ways to use it related to art so here's an original idea I came up with. Funny, part of this activity I did find on Pinterest, but I do think what I did with it is unique. I haven't seen this one anywhere else. I got the idea for making shapes out of plastic binder dividers here. The wonderful wooden blocks with translucent colored centers are soooo expensive. This is a great, cheap alternative!

I tried to think about how we could use shapes to make art. I could have just asked my girls to create a picture with the shapes. But I have learned from past experience that it is good to give them a bit more direction. When I leave things completely open-ended they tend to get overwhelmed. So I decided to transform our Paul Klee project from last summer. I showed the girls their Klee pages from their art journals and asked them to create a cityscape with the shapes. My younger daughter wasn't much into this, but it was the time of day when she is usually tired so she was more interested in watching a movie than doing the activity.

However, once again, my 8 year old was completely into this activity! She is so intrigued by the light panel. Almost anything I set up with it (even if it's more for my 2 year old) she jumps right in and is very engaged.

 

The image above is her finished cityscape. She explained to me that the two yellow squares on the posts on the left and right are lamp posts. And that's her origami hamster she made earlier in the morning. She says it was taking a taxi back to its house. :-) I thought that was so great! I asked her if she could make one more building where the hamster was so it would look even more like Klee's art. And I showed her how we could layer the smaller shapes to make even more shapes. And she came up with this:

In my completely biased opinion, I think that is a pretty darn good light panel rendition of Paul Klee's Castle and Sun! 

She asked if she could just play with the shapes for a bit when she was done with her Klee image. I told her to go for it. And she came up with this:

 

LOL! It's a home for her hamster! In the picture the hamster is in its "ball". The left part with the yellow circle is the hamster's wheel. And the rest of it is its maze/home.

She called her sister in to show her how the hamster could "go through" the maze.

 

So creative, cute and fun! I am so over the top thrilled that we have a light panel. It is so great to see how creative the kids get with it. And it's fun and challenging for me to see what I can come up with for them to do with the panel in an artistic way.