Preschool classroom is a special place for little learners and is also called early childhood environment. Children and teacher spend most of their waking hours in there. The classroom set up plays a vital role in overall success of the child’s education.
Children come to the classroom for learning new skills and enhancing those they had already gained. The success of the same also depends on how well the classroom has been planned. Here comes a very important concept of the classroom areas. One of the main approaches of the preschool education is to develop child’s creative thinking; hence most of the preschool will have a designated art area or art centre.
The goal of this area is not simply to teach child to draw, but to encourage creativity and self-expression as well as encourage small muscle development and hand-eye coordination. The art areas will also teach children about shape, colors, lines, sizes, patterns, textures. The good art area has a variety of supplies such as pencils, crayons, brushes, glue, beads, embellishments, craft paper, yarn and floss, and other supplies available in the modern market, which have numerous ways if their usage in arts and crafts.
The art area requires the same management from the teacher’s side as any other area of the classroom. Here are some advices for keeping the art area at the ready for children to use:
- Keep all the materials in stock and approachable
- Locate the art area near to sink and on tile as it’ll be easier to clean it up
- Make this area attractive for children, put colorful pictures on the walls around, or better, decorate it with the children’s own creations
- Art is supposed to give children freedom of expression, so let them interact with materials and use them the way they want, don’t give instructions
- Art area is a great place for teaching children to assist in, and be responsible for, cleaning up any mess
The basic art supplies which can be used by children during their art sessions include:
- Paint Rollers
- Paint Brushes
- Dough Pins
- Colors
- Crayons
- Glue
- Craft Paper in different colors, sizes and textures
- Tissue Paper
- Molds
- Scissors
However teacher’s creativity and imagination is most welcome to add some new interesting materials as to make child’s art experience richer.
Nowadays the preschools are not bond up with just indoor activities and many schools come up with outdoor art areas too. Obviously that the set up of outdoor art area is characterized in that it’s an open space, with no doors and walls, where weather contributes to the child’s imagination and creative thinking. An effective outdoor of course require an advance planning, however almost any outdoor equipment can serve a particular the purpose. For example a fence can display children’s art. There can be various activities based on the supplies nature provides us like mud, stones, grass and so on. Eventually the outdoor art experiences will help children refine muscle control and lead them to create and enjoy art on a smaller scale.