Process Art

Often as adults we are so obsessed by goals that the process of doing things becomes unimportant.  This can especially be the case in early years settings in the UK where the government continues to make box ticking and goal setting a statutory requirement.  Children are much less concerned with where they end up and able to live completely in the moment much more easily.  It can be especially tempting in art and craft projects to take over and start directing children in order to get a more aesthetically pleasing end result but this stifles creativity and inhibits growth whilst not building confidence.  So today I attempted to create an environment for Ethan where he could enjoy the process of the art  (for more about process art read here ) he made as much as possible and with as little interference from myself as possible.  The fact we live in a rented house with beige carpets added extra challenges to this! First I covered the living carpet with a big dust sheet.  Then I brought in the tuff spot.  I had some wallpaper samples I covered the tuff spot with before taping them in place with gaffer tape.  Then I poured paints in the inside packaging of a biscuit tin (chocolate packaging, cardboard or paper plates etc would work just as well or if you have an artists pallete use that!).  I put some other items of interest out too - old megablocks, lids from jars and milk bottles, a dragon stamp and a toilet roll tube plus some paint brushes.   Ethan was excited to see the blank canvas before him and soon got stuck in using the megablocks to print squares and then the lids to print circles on the wallpaper. 

He also used the brushes and then started painting the megablocks and lids with the brushes and then his hands and arms.  Soon he asked to add water to the mix.  He also wanted to add more paint so I helped him do this when he got stuck.  The end result was not as conventionally pretty as if I'd sat down and given him rules and directed him but he seemed to thrive in the freedom he was given.  He was fascinated that by mixing red and blue on his hands that he could make purple or blue and white made light blue.  It can be hard when we get resources out for children and hope they will use them in a certain way to sit back and observe (only helping when asked) but the benefits of this are so much more enriching for children than trying to force our agenda on them.    

Coloured Salt

Given the success of yesterday's invitation to play, I have decided to try and do one each day for Ethan. I have been meaning to do something with coloured salt ever since I saw it on the Imagination Tree website.  I poured some table salt into a tub, added quite a few drops of blue food colouring and then stirred it until it became a powdery blue.  I liked how sparkly the salt made it look and Ethan commented on that when he came down and found it presented in a blue (unused!) cat litter tray with a tool in.

Ethan thought it was sugar at first and ran straight over to investigate further.  At first he used the tool to drag through the salt.  Then he asked if he could make a hand print. Then I showed him how I could write an e in it for Ethan using my finger and he copied.

After this Ethan ran to get the cookie cutters to make shapes in the salt.  He made a hexagon and diamond and asked me what the shape names were.  He also made a crocodile and pig.

Then Ethan added the cars.

He had so much fun with the existing resources by utilising them in a new way with the salt.

Chinese Year of the Water Snake

To celebrate the Chinese Year of the Water Snake we have been making snake pictures today.  I started off by drawing a snake outline on card and then cut it out.  Then I used it as a template to make more snakes.  I gave each child a snake and the paint trays filled with poster paint and glitter paint and let them loose with paint brushes and sponges.  Then we let the pictures dry whilst the child that has a nap went to bed.  After a few hours we got the collage material tin (containing buttons, feathers, sequins, stickers and tissue paper) out and PVA glue so everyone could decorate the snakes.  The children enjoyed talking about shapes, colours, textures etc and the sensory experience of gluing the different pieces on their snakes.  The snake pictures turned out brilliant and everyone had a lot of fun making them.

This links in with the EYFS in the following ways :

Mathematics - Shapes, Space & Measures - by opening up discussion about shapes, size and similarities.

Expressive Arts & Design - Exploring & Using Media & Materials - allowing experimentation with colours and mixing & a range of different media.

Communication & Language  - promoting conversation and widening vocabulary.

Personal, Social & Emotional Development - building self confidence by allowing independent choice.

Understanding of the World - talking about animals and a different culture.       

I saw these great printable tangram puzzles on actvity village this morning.

I printed the tangram template in colour and then laminated before printing a selection of the puzzles on grayscale (to preserve printer ink!) and laminated them.  I also printed the black and white template.  Before giving them to Ethan me and my husband had a go.  Some of the puzzles are very tricky but there is great satisfaction in completing them.  I see this resource as something which Ethan and all the other children can play with for a long time.  To begin with I asked Ethan to identify the shapes and he was able to learn a new one in parallelogram.  Then I showed him how they all made a square when fitted together and they could also by made into other things.  Ethan was able to get some of the shapes in the right place on the puzzles but the main point of the activity today was to introduce the concept and allow him to explore the shapes and make connections with minimal intervention.  When Ethan had finished having a go at each puzzle he correctly placed all the shapes back on the black and white template in the right places.

         
This links in with the EYFS in the following ways :

Communication & Language  - promoting conversation and widening vocabulary (colours, shapes and talking through thought processes).

Mathematics - Shapes, Space & Measures - by opening up discussion about shapes, size and similarities & using shapes appropriately for tasks.  Numbers - Counting shapes.