Creative/art Area Continuous Provision

[Guest]

Hi all

 

I work with children aged 20- 36 months and have been giving lots of thought to our art area at present. How can we offer free choice for access and choices of paint/ glue etc on a practical level with children of this age?

 

Most days at least 1 of the key people in the room will have some kind of art as an adult initiated activity for a child in their group and of course all the other children are free to take part too if they wish but I feel they should some how be able to access the resources themselves. We are trying to do this, we have paint in small pots and glue in small pots, paper at there level on a trolley etc but they don't seem to access it, despite lots of encouragement from us.

 

They have no problems choosing what toys to get out in every other area of the room, they will freely choose the toys to go in the sand and water even but paint and malleable and mark making resources, they just don't seem to want to help themselves BUT if we put it out then they are there like a shot.

 

Does anybody have any suggestions on how we can organise this better so that the children are interested in free choice in this area, or is this just a silly idea with this age group of children? Also what exactly should we have in there despite the obvious, different sizes and colours of paper, paint, brushes, glue, printing items, brushes, etc ?

 

 

Thanks, off to work now...typed this in a real rush so please excuse any mistakes or ramblings!

 

xx

[blondie]

could you just model it for them with a member of staff - the children could then be encouraged by the adult to take their card etc and sit alongside the adult - the adult could then talk about choosing what to put on card / what will put on next - at same time encourage child to choose by saying "im going to put yellow rice on my card what are you going to choose?" - would this work - might take a while for children to get hang of it but think should work in the end.

[Cait]

they just don't seem to want to help themselves BUT if we put it out then they are there like a shot.

 

Perhaps this is the point, at this age they are perhaps still waiting to take the lead from you, a degree of independence may not be well established although curiosity is. If you keep putting it out on a regular basis, and they enjoy it, they will start to look for it when it's not out. Does that make sense?

[Guest]

We have children from 24 months so slightly older, but we find they are very happy to access the creative materials. In my area I could guess this could be due to restricted access at home! I think the modelling idea could be good but maybe this particular group are just not confident enough because they are not usually allowed to have free access to such equipment in their home life. Does that make any sense?

[Guest]

Just make sure that they are wearing an apron, add scissors to the collection of paper, glue etc and stand back. The scissors will be the draw, then an adult can show them how to use the scissors, talk about how they work, safety issues etc and it should motivate even the youngest child. If they have access to gluing and cutting regularly they will begin to create super things.

Bet wishes, Ednaloy

[Guest]

Thanks for the replies.

 

Yes what your saying does make sense, especially you Cait, I think your right. I don't think they do feel confindent enough to help themselves and Holly maybe that is because they can't help themselves at home.

 

Ednaloy, they do have scissors, yes they love them snipping at different papers, catalogues etc but only if we put them out first which is my point.

 

We do model as well as ask frequently "What shall we put on the art table today?" "Shall we choose something off the trolley?" and I guess some of the older children will then come and select some paint or something like that so what we're doing now probably does work to a degree. I suppose if they were all going grabbing at stuff on the trolley, we'd be moaning they were all at it at once and not be able to manage with them all wanting different things "NOW" (like toddlers to, they can't wait can they?)

 

I think it may be me, I'm so used to working with 3 and 4 year old's I'm excpecting these little ones to be the same. The older ones, just pop over get themselves an apron and a paint tray, squirt a little paint in to the compartments, get the paper, put it to dry afterwards, wash their tray's and brushes (all be it in a very slap dash manner). Not that I'm expecting 2 year olds to do this but you know what I mean, I guess it's a bigger jump down than I thought.

 

Rambling now...sorry! I miss my pre-schoolers! lol

 

Thanks again x