Submitted by Bea Sheftel
Early Childhood Teacher

When I was a kindergarten teacher I attended art workshops. We were taught that the experience of creating art is more important for the younger children, than the product. With this in mind we provided the children with tactile art projects including finger painting, dough art, and collage using greeting cards.

Because finger painting is rather messy, we only worked with a few children at a time. They had to provide an old shirt to wear as a smock. So one teacher or aid stayed with the finger painters. Some times we started with a question about their family, or read them a story or talked about their summer. And then they could create what ever they wanted. The children were always pleased with their colored swirls of color. We hung them on an indoor clothes line to dry. At open house the parents could take these home.

For clay art, we made our own clay from a recipe similar to clay dough. We used non toxic food coloring. The children were given a wooden mat so they could pound out their clay and make whatever shapes they wanted. Clay dough dries hard in 24 hours. The clay dough stays good for a month in a closed contained such as a covered coffee can. I also put in a small wet sponge to keep it moist. After a month the children were allowed to make something to keep. We’d let the clay air dry over night in the classroom and then they took it home.

The collage is a project I’ve done with different age groups including high school kids. It is fun because you don’t need any artistic talent. Combine the greeting cards with buttons, ribbons, tiny flowers, and magic markers and the children can create magical art work. You can use construction paper as a base for this art work. However, because the finished work is heavy, I recommend cut up poster board. Corrugated cardboard also works since the students will cover the entire surface with their collage.

Have an assortment of all occassion greeting cards available. Parents can donate these. You can also include magazines. I always have ribbon, lace, buttons, and other small items. I use white glue. Not Elmer’s, it doesn’t stick as well. I use a white, non toxic craft glue. It dries clear. Talk to the children about designs such as in fabrics. If you have fabric swatches that would help. You can also read them a story and ask them to interpret it, or just to create any design of their choice.

With collage the entire surface is covered. This work also needs to dry, probably a couple of hours before they can be brought hime.

An alternative to overall collage is using bits and pieces of colored paper, cards, etc and creating scenes. For instance:

Mommy and I go to the park.
Cut out the sun out of bright orange or yellow contruction paper.Cut flowers out of greeting cards. Find a picture of a mother and child in a magazine. Add the elements along with magic marker or crayon art work.



About the Author:
Bea Sheftel lives in Connecticut. She is married to her lifelong sweetheart and has one adult son and two dogs. She has published literally hundreds of articles, poems and short fiction in magazines, newspapers, and online. She currently teaches memoir writing and also how to write a confession story at Painted Rock for writers. She is also an editor at Suite101 on the topic of homelessness. Besides her own writing, she keeps busy reading books and doing book reviews for online and print magazines.

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