Tips and Ideas
Look below for some extra ideas to extend your work with the children.
Use what you've got.
You don’t have to go out and buy a whole lot of new resources to begin your art journey with your children. Look around your space/center/home for items you can repurpose (See? We’re thinking sustainably too!) Bottles and jars make beautiful containers for items that are found or gathered. These can enhance a display or even hold your paint. Baskets, bowls and trays are great for collections or for containing materials and resources you’re using in an art experience.
Go outside and see the beauty there. Find some large sticks, interesting pebbles or fallen leaves to includein your Art area. Nature provides us with infinite inspiration to create.
How to display ?
Work that isn’t displayed on walls or shelves can be combined in folders which children and families can revisit and view together. Put these on your bookshelves or at the sign-in table for easy access.
Include these Reflective Folders in your Art area along with posters, photos and the children’s masterpieces.
Think about repurposing some surfaces for display – the top of the bookshelf, covered boxes from the local supermarket, hang work on coat-hangers from the ceiling or a door handle or use clipboards sitting on a recipe book stand.
Change your displays.
It can sometimes take a lot of time to set up displays and that effort should be honoured but don’t fall into the trap of leaving things up for too long as they become “invisible”.
Displays can be as simple as a small collection of beautiful or interesting things found outside. Three or four stones and a snail shell can inspire interest and conversations. A bowl of similarly coloured beads or building bricks near a tray provides an irresistible invitation to create with them.
Not everyone’s work needs to be displayed at once. Choose a variety of pieces to combine as these create an eclectic and eye-catching exhibit. You want to create the feeling of going to a gallery.
This shows respect for work and encourages children and families to chat about what they’re seeing.
