In this guest post, Penny of Mother Natured shares some brilliant craft ideas for children using materials generously given to us by nature. There are some great advantages to using leaves, bark, flowers and other natural items in your children's art and craft activities. Not only will you save money on craft supplies, but you'll end up with beautiful, unique creations every time. There's another reason, though, that's less about craft and more about the fundamentals of your child's de … [Read more...]
Ballerina – Simple Art For Kids
Often young girls fall in love with ballet and ballerinas. This fascination is usually something parents happily encourage since it promotes a healthy lifestyle, physical activity, great for little girl's posture, teaches them to move gracefully, encourages children to listen to classical music and create wonderful friendships. There are plenty of amazing books written for children who take delight in this graceful form of dance. We came across a couple of them. It inspired our ballet … [Read more...]
Play-dough Art Mat – Preschool Art Explorations.
Here is something simple to offer your child if they love working with play-dough, and you have the inspiration to introduce them to the world of fine arts. This idea came from my obsession to make every single activity meaningful and educational. I wonder sometimes if it's a weakness or strength.. Anyway, we all know how appealing play-dough is to young children. Sometimes they can spend hours moulding it in their hands. There are children who are an exception to this rule, for example, miss A. … [Read more...]
Montessori Inspired Art Appreciation Activities.
Without much preparation, planning or intention, Art as we know it, feel it, experience it, experiment with it took a huge part of our everyday life. We started 30 Days of Creativity and Art to help navigate our homeschooling towards creative side of learning and I do not think we will ever stop. Whatever it is - learning poems, listening to classical music, creating mosaics with leaves outside, looking for funny cloud shapes in the sky, painting on a mirror - it all provided a new perspective, … [Read more...]
Preschool Process Art Inspired by Kandinsky.
Art masterpieces are an incredible source of learning opportunities. Through studying and discussing art children learn to pay attention to small details, colours, use of space, shapes and creativity. Among pictures of masterpieces that we received from Montessori By Mom with the Art Appreciation toolbox my daughter especially loved painting done by Wassily Kandinsky - Russian artist. Kandinsky also was a musician and often drew his inspiration from music. Kandinsky said: "each colour lives … [Read more...]
PROCESS ART FOR KIDS INSPIRED BY CLAUDE MONET
A child's perception of art at the young preschool age is often a blank canvas. It is wonderful to be able to spark inspiration using the creations of great artists, like Monet. My little artist is only three, this means that she benefits the most from art experiences that allow her to create through discovering and exploring without adult direction and the final result is not as important as a process. I prepared her art space - which a part of our homeschooling routine - and offered her to … [Read more...]
CLAY ART PROJECT FOR KIDS
Sometimes parents struggle with improving their child's fine motor skills. Creativity and art are fantastic for engaging child's hands into meaningful and fun activity. I love present to my preschooler different types of art medium. Due to it's texture clay can be a great challenge for little hands. This time we used colour modeling clay just because it is easier to mold for a young child and frankly the colours are very attractive. However, in future I am looking forward experimenting … [Read more...]
CHARCOAL DRAWING – PROCESS ART FOR KIDS || Day 6
Children love discovering and experimenting with various types of art medium. Using charcoal for creative self-expression is a different experience from working with paint, markers or pastels. A. was fully engaged in the process of learning fun ways to use charcoal for drawing. As usual, our primary focus was to enjoy the process and give my preschooler an opportunity to participate in an open-ended art activity where she could take complete control and help her develop fine motor skills. "The … [Read more...]
PROCESS ART FOR PRESCHOOLERS INSPIRED BY “DOT”
The process of discovering many types of art medium is so magnetic for preschool children. I am thrilled we took this 30 days of creativity and art challenge with my 3-year-old daughter to focus on process art. Process art is all about the journey rather than a final destination, and I love to see where it is taking both of us. Have you heard of a beautiful, inspiring kids art book "Dot" by Peter H Reynolds? We continue discovering the beauty of creativity and this time A did an activity … [Read more...]
PAINTING WITH NATURAL LOOSE PARTS
Maria Montessori believed that "beauty could be found in nature and that nature itself should be and is the most infinite source of creative inspiration" source. Connecting art experience with nature allows us to incorporate more meaning into our nature walks. When going outside we learn to notice colours, identify sounds and smells. This time out nature walk had a purpose for collecting nature objects for our next art exploration. We looked for something that was not too small or too big, had … [Read more...]
