Collaborative Watercolor Painting

This was an interesting project to watch as it came together.  Kindergarten completed large watercolor resist art pieces.  I painted the big black lines and they filled in.  I didn't give them specific instructions as to how I wanted them to fill these in, that was left up to them.   I wanted to see how they went about the process themselves.  All they were told is that they would use crayon to add details and watercolor to fill space with color.  You could really see who the take charge personalities were, right away giving instructions...maybe future teachers?  Some groups had a discussion before starting to make an agreement on the steps and then still other groups that dove right in and started coloring without discussion.  These were the most interesting to watch, most of the groups realized before too long there had to be some boundaries, and then some groups argued a bit.  As hard as it was, I didn't intervene.  I wanted to see what there problem solving skills were.  Almost all groups came to some kind of agreement somewhere along the way, with only a few pouters, I think pretty successful overall. I liked that there were those who chose to work alone, and some decided to work in pairs or groups.  However they all completed them, I think they will brighten and cheer up our hallways!