First-School.ws
Sunflower Crafts · Visual Arts · Art Appreciation · Vincent Van Gogh Preschool Lesson Plan Activities

Activity: Visit an Online Gallery to View Van Gogh's Sunflowers and Meet Mr. Van Gogh

• Visit the Online Gallery:
  March 30th is Mr. Vincent Van Gogh's birthday, so why not celebrate his sunflowers paintings and take our children to this online gallery to see them and also learn about sunflowers with other activities. Click on a few of the thumbnail pictures to view a larger image. Encourage discussion and as the children view the images provide them with some basic information about Mr. Van Gogh.
  
  
• Meet Mr. Van Gogh:
  • Discuss some basic information about Mr. Van Gogh and read Joy Chiang's lesson plan for additional ideas to incorporate Mr. Van Gogh's life and work in the activities. What is important is to know that he left us with beautiful paintings to enjoy and learn from.
    
    
  • Famous artist and painter born in a beautiful country called Holland, The Netherlands.
    
    
  • Visual Arts / Art Appreciation: One of his favorite flowers was the sunflower and he left us all the gift of a collection of magnificent sunflower paintings. This type of painting is called a still life. For information and further activities on still life painting, visit this activity: A Still Life.

Activity: How Seeds Grow: View this cute video and discuss how a plants grow, in this case a sunflower seed to flower.

Activity: Learning About Sunflowers
Now let us derive joy from learning the story of sunflowers, how they are planted, how they grow, and their many useful uses. We will use the color yellow in all it's splendor with these activities:

• Read The Story of the Sunflower Coloring Book from the screen and simplify it as you go along or print and display on a board.
• Print those pages you think the children would like to color.
• Have the children color, paint and decorate their sunflower coloring pages.
• For younger children, print one of the coloring pagees in the materials column.

Arts and crafts activities >

• Large Sunflower Posters:
  Have the children observe Mr. Van Gogh's sunflower paintings. Provide large pieces of paper (easel size, or tape discarded paper together) yellow paints in different shades, greens and other colors, brushes, sponges and allow them to do free style painting to make their own sunflowers.
  
  
• Draw, color and write: S is for Sunflower
  Print the drawing and writing paper. Have children draw and color sunflowers. Children can then practice writing letter F is for Flower, S for Sunflower or letter Y for Yellow.
  
  
• Coloring & writing > Print a sunflower theme coloring pages found in the materials column.
  • Children Ages 2-4: Color or paint. Paste sunflower seeds in the center of flower.
    
    
  • For older children learning to print:
    Print these writing lines behind your choice of coloring page. Have children practice writing letter S for sunflower or Y is for yellow. After writing practice encourage children to color and decorate the coloring page.
    
    
• Crafts > Sunflower Crafts at dltk-holidays.com > Make your selection of a wonderful sunflower craft.
  
  Happy Birthday Mr. Van Gogh and thank you!