Preschool art projects

The "must do" in your preschool lesson plans

Looking for Preschool art projects? Here you'll find some tips on preparing kids for preschool art. Does it have to be expensive? No! Oh well - Yes, it can cost a bomb if you choose to, but do you really want to?

Some of the low cost arts and crafts include a variety of cheap art supplies that are easily available in your home or preschool. You don't even need to frequent a craft store. Besides using color pencils, paints, or crayons, you can use straws, strings, sponge, vegetables, fruits and many other everyday household items.

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Why preschool art projects are important and valuable to your preschool lesson plans?

Creativity is the key in preschool education. When teaching preschoolers in art classes, it is not just how to paint, how to draw....etc. Teachers should encourage kids to exercise their little minds to express the feelings of their hearts. So, when you release the children's mind and give them opportunities to play with colors, patterns and graphic design, you'll be amazed with the beauty and joy they would bring. In many cases, children’s art give you a hint of where they are emotionally, because art reveals the heart. Yes, by analyzing their work, you may get to understand the stages of the child development.

What do you mean by having creativity in preschool art projects ?

Creativity is a capacity or potential and continual possess, at least in some degree, by all human beings. It involves intuition, fluency, flexibility, originality and divergent thinking. It also means any way of reacting to a situation that goes beyond the mere imitation of what someone else did in that situation.

How can I teach creativity ?

As a preschool teacher or parent, you can only create an environment for creativity. You cannot teach it. Stock up lots of art supplies and include a big chunk of time in your preschool lesson plan. Most importantly, don't stifle a child's creativity by offering standard craft sample and limited craft supplies. It is more ideal to provide lots of recycled materials, craft papers and stationeries and allow the child to create their own art projects rather than have the whole class reproduce what you have made as a sample. Art must be creative, otherwise it is no art at all.

What is Creative Art ?

Creative Art should offer the child the opportunity for originality, creativity, fluency, flexibility, sensitive and aesthetics. The art area is one discipline where no one way of doing things is right or wrong. Each child is unique in his / her artistic expression. It is a must that we remember that the process and not the finished product is our goal in providing appropriate art experiences.

Value of Preschool Art Projects

1. It offers opportunity for self expression and individualism. Some children who do not communicate feeling well through verbal language, music, physical activities or other areas; they might be able to express themselves through art.

2. Preschool art projects are always satisfying to most children. They enjoy creating, working with the raw materials, the processes involve in the art activity, and the product achieved through the creative art endeavors.

3. Art activities are therapeutic. It offers catharsis for the child's feelings and emotion that may not be expressed in any other kind of activity.

4. It offers training, skill and development in eye-hand coordination (eg cutting, pasting) Most activities require small muscle skill, when children practices, this skill improved.

5. As children mature and advance in the stages of art, they devote more thinking, planning, and organizing to their projects. Thus the way they interpret ideas, solve problems, and think through concepts can be reflected in their artwork. Much can be learned about a child's feeling and knowledge through artwork.

Note the 2 thinking patterns. When we talk about preschool art projects, we are stimulating the child's divergent thinking pattern.

Convergent Thinking:

a. easy to evaluate

b. non threatening

c. less time consuming

d. sometimes essential to education

Divergent Thinking:

a. no right answer

b. flexible

c. orginality

d. imagination

e. see things in different view