young at art

I've just finished reading a book called Young at Art by Susan Striker. It's a bit prescriptive in parts for my liking ( like introducing kids to one colour crayon at a time) but there are some really inspiring parts too and I had lots of "ahhhh, yes" moments reading it. The core belief behind the book is that " Manipulative work with responsive materials with which the child has direct physical contact, such as finger paint and clay, in addition to crayons and paint are significant and contribute to the child's intellectual and creative development". It stresses that art materials need to always be available in order to encourage self - motivated creations. It also talks about the language parents sometimes use when talking to children about their art, for example, rather than asking "what is that?" it's better to say something about the tools they're using, the shapes/ lines they're making or how your child is feeling about what they're doing, for example,  " I can see you're covering your whole page with lines"- makes sense I think. My teaching training has taught me how to speak to children about what they're doing creatively but I really liked the  idea of a designated art area which we didn't have until today. This morning I bought and set up a trolley with pencils, felts, crayons, paper, glue and collage supplies on it. I like that if I had to I could hide it away easily but until then everything's well within their reach. As soon as we got home today they were busy creating. M made me a fan and T experimented with the glue stick. It was a bit messy but nothing a quick wipe over didn't fix. I will add things to it ( leaves, sticks, buttons etc) so I'm looking forward to seeing what they'll come up with in future.

yes they eat some of their meals at that table- but it's a start!

a fan