Beautiful OOPS

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Take some white glue and to pour it on to a piece of cardboard or a paper or plastic plate and let the glue just ooze where it wants to. The message in the book is that you can look at a mistake as an opportunity to create something new, something better, something beautiful. It is even good to make mistakes, that mistakes are worth making and there is no need to be afraid. What would life be like if you didn’t try anything new because you were worried about making a mistake? This “Beautiful Oops” activity is a preschool book craft focusing on fine motor skills with a concentration on awareness of differences, making mistakes, and not focusing on specific details, using a creative book activity based on the book, Beautiful Oops by Barney Saltzberg. If you are looking for hands-on book related activities, this one is a big hit! Beautiful Oops Activity

Beautiful Oops was inspired by teachers to whom I’ve show how I write and illustrate picture books. Two of the images I show how I turned mistakes into artwork. One is the cover of my sketchbook. I spilled coffee on it and decided the shape looked like a monster. The other is from an old book of mine, The Flying Garbanzos. A dog climbed up on to my desk and walked across the paper, leaving paw prints that I couldn’t erase. Rather than starting over, I painted clouds over each paw print. Teachers requested that I write a book, teaching that concept. One day, I was sitting in my studio and tore a piece of paper in half. I decided it looked like an alligator’s mouth. That was the beginning of Beautiful Oops. The bent corner of a piece of paper isn’t something to throw away. It’s something to celebrate and Saltzberg has crafted his into a waddling penguin. This book craft is part of a series of activities that help kids build social and emotional skills such as: Bio: Barney Saltzberg is the author of more than 30 books for children, including Good Egg and the bestselling Touch and Feel Kisses series, with over 800,000 copies in print. Additionally, he’s recorded four albums of songs for children. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, two dogs, and a pond full of fish. All parents experience this. When kids reach a certain age, they often become very upset when they make mistakes on a piece of artwork. My daughter, in particular, would get very upset when she messed up a picture, and she would cry and think it was ruined. Fortunately, I told her enough times that she could turn the mistake into something else that hadn't been originally planned that she doesn't worry about those kinds of mistakes anymore.

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I like tissue paper over glue too….you can layer it and get neat color combinations, then add arms and legs and a head. Melissa’s Note: Isn’t this amazing? Barney, thank you so much for giving the world this book, and for guest blogging on Imagination Soup. (WOW!) It’s really an important skill for kids to learn because it helps them deal with the frustration of not being able to make (draw, paint, cut) what they want. All of this takes some finessing on the part of the adult. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. It often indicates a user profile.

I love this idea! What a great book! I was in art for four years in high school and just about all my pieces made it in to the art show. It was something I just “did” and not until my mother pointed out that not everyone’s artwork gets in the show did I realize it’s a gift I need to appreciate. The biggest and best “oops” project I made was for my best friend. I had tons of pictures of us, many with “out takes” you’d never put in a photo album. I thought it’d be funny to cut one out and put it in a postcard I had on my desk. And there was my friend, really funny expression, looking like she was in a helicopter flying over NYC. I liked it so much that I bought tons of postcards and created a whole book about our “Great Adventure”, adding goofy shots of us into each one. I think I had more fun creating it as she did opening it!We love the sheep made out of a ball of scrunched-up paper. It is just too inviting and you have to stroke this cute ball of paper! Have the art teacher hand out pieces of paper with blobs, streaks, or mistakes on them. Then, encourage the students to turn the blobs of paint into something beautiful by adding their own touches on them! This lesson comes from here: http://www.workman.com/static/saltzbe...