Arts
Welcome to the Art Educators' Resource Hub
Art is a complex mental process, and creating it requires children to be mentally as well as physically involved (Howard & Mayesky, 2022). Young children use art as a powerful tool to express their ideas, thoughts, and feelings when they are unable to use words. Because it encourages imagination, experimentation, and problem-solving, it also promotes creativity. Children learn colour, texture, shape, and space through hands-on activities like painting, drawing, and sculpture. Activities involving art promote healthy communication, emotion, and coordination. Creativity in the art is not only about the instructions that need to be followed but also the exploration and making of unique choices, as children are confident and involved learners, according to outcome 4 of the EYLF (AGDE, 2022).
Theories and Perspectives on Creativity in Art
- Social Constructivism Theory: Vygotsky developed this theory, which implies that children can become creative when they interact with one another. Teachers can support children as facilitators and help them to explore the direction of the arts with guidance (scaffolding).
- Piaget's Stages of cognitive development: Piaget's theory brings out the fact that memory based on sensation (0-2 years) and the symbol-based thinking (2-7 years) would shape the creative expression by the children (Nolan & Raban, 2024).
Resources, Materials, and Digital Technologies
- Traditional materials include crayons, paintbrushes, markers, clay, and child-safe scissors, leaves.
- Open-ended materials: The possibility to choose and explore creatively is promoted with the help of open-ended materials like boxes that were previously used in recycling, textures of fabrics, papers (a variety of natural objects like sticks, leaves, stones). These enable children to play around without a defined end result.
- Digital tools that support creativity and creation records include tablets, digital cameras, and drawing apps like Sketches and Doodle. The children will be given a range of tools to explore, develop, and express their ideas in a variety of ways if all three categories of resources are used.
Learning Experiences for Different Age Groups
- 0 - 2 Years
- Sensory Finger Painting with Natural Materials: Babies are having a play with the textures and color of large papers or trays using fingers and natural consumable dyes (e.g., beetroot, water of spinach). Scaffolding should ask teachers to employ descriptive language and allow children to sense things. It promotes exploration by touch, color, and mixing.
- Textured collage on contact paper: Give babies textured, safe, and soft objects (such as feathers, sponges, and leftover fabric) to adhere to contact paper. Teachers utilise language to describe texture and pattern as children explore. encourages grassroots aesthetic sensibility and real investigation.
- 2 - 3 years
- Natural painting without paintbrushes: Instead of using paintbrushes, toddlers use natural items like sticks, leaves, and pinecones. Teachers encourage children to explore with different strokes and results. Stimulates exploration and representational signification of the environment.
- Playdough and Imprint designs: In order to create impressions and shapes, children are permitted to play with playdough that has been produced at home and a range of items that they may find at home, such as buttons, forks, and leaves. Teachers ask open-ended questions to stimulate students' thinking. It promotes symbolic thinking and problem-solving.
- 3 - 5 years
- Story based art: Teachers can read a story to the children, based on which, the children can make an artwork based on the same. This helps to bring about the thinking skills and language development among the children, coupled with artistic ability.
- Drawing of a Mirror Self-Portrait: Using pencils, crayons, or pastels, children create self-portraits and learn to analyze their own characteristics with the aid of the mirror. The professors cultivate details and ask insightful questions. It enables self-definition and expression
- 6 - 8 years
- Stop-Motion Animation with Paper Art: Through working on paper cut-outs, children develop characters and backgrounds that are later animated on tablets by a short animation. It is a mix of telling stories, sequence, and digital artwork.
- Observational drawing: Scene in perspective Children sketch a nature scene or a real-life classroom and get to know about the foreground, middle ground, and background. The perspective techniques are led by teachers, and the creative interpretation is encouraged. It helps in visual thinking and design.
Original Creative Learning Opportunities
Playdough and Imprint designs: Common household items were incorporated in this activity that involved playdough. I prepared the playdough at home, and I prepared some things such as buttons, forks, and leaves that the children are going to press into the dough, the children started pressing the objects and noticing the marks they made. Children use a fork to make stripes, and a shell to make a beautiful pattern. It supports the outcome 4 Children are confident and involved learners, as they explore and experiment with the colors in an open-ended way. This supports them to be confident and involved learners as they experiment with different colors and textures (AGDE, 2022)
Nature Painting without Paintbrushes: In this activity, instead of giving the children paintbrushes, I offered natural materials like sticks, leaves, and to paint with. The idea was to encourage them to explore how different objects can be used to create marks and patterns. Firstly, dip the leaves in paint. Some made dots, some dragged the sticks across the paper, and each child found their own way to experiment. Links to the outcome 2 children are connected with and contribute to their world, nature printmaking allows them for the appreciate of nature and develop a sense of respect for their environment (AGDE, 2022).
Critical Reflection
My personal creativity, as well as interests in the field of art, have had a strong impact on my teaching behaviours. Trying new forms of art is wonderful and fun, and I like to extend those feelings into creative experiences, and that is my passion, as well. The thing is, I invite children to use different kinds of materials and methods, which will help create an atmosphere where a child will have no fear to express their feelings. Artistic exploration is also my passion, and this is one of the ways that the children will enjoy art as a process rather than a process with an answer.
Creativity has been beneficial to my teaching since I am more strongly inclined to the development of the child and inspired to find out the differences in the development of the child. I have also been able to see through art that children will make decisions on their own, explore new concepts, and are able to overcome the hardships. As an example, when a child had issues with a paper craft, they did not quit the process; instead, they would learn it through trial and error. This practical problem-solving experience builds confidence and a growth mindset in them.
However, there were also some challenges with my approach. Due to a fear of making a mistake, several of the children were afraid to participate in open-ended activities. To deal with this, I'll show a more active, creative approach, provide kind opinions, and create a welcoming, non-stressful atmosphere where children may make errors as part of the learning process.
