Early childhood art education tends to be one of those topics that many art teachers in their beginning years are just at a loss to handle. I know I was a mess my first year. I couldn't decide if I should just let them go free and create? Or force them into tracing pages to learn their shapes? Or just let them mix paint all the time? And then something just worked one day, and it was the use of BOOKS to introduce and inspire students to create art.
So here's how it works... This project was using the book "Up Close" by Gay Wegerif. Studentsbegin by coming in and sitting quietly on the carpet. While reading the book I like to pause every now and then to ask what they think the animal is before I turn the page to reveal the actual animal. After we finish the story, we go over the basic shapes that were used to make all of the animals in the story...square, rectangle, triangle, circle, semi-circle. I then explain that at their table there are all of these shapes pre-cut and glue sticks for them to create their own animals today. Students are given their papers one by one and head to a seat to begin. Towards the end of class students received a white crayon so that they could add any final details they wanted.
I hope you enjoy the wide variety of animals students made as pictured above!!
Helpful Hints: I've found students get a bit restless at such a young age after about 35-40 minutes of art and so I usually try to have a basket of books for them to read so if they finish early, they know they have the option of sitting on the carpet quietly and reading.
* looking for more great books to inspire young artists? Check out the Great Summer Art Reads Page to see a list of the books I use in my classrooms!
