Prepare for CAEYC with DIY Fun!

We are gearing up for CAEYC, which is also known as the California Association of the Education of Young Children!  This association has an annual convention in California for early childhood educators.  Each state has their own association and there is a popular national association called NAEYC (the National Association for the Education of Young Children) This national association is the premier professional development conference for teachers who work with young children; ages 0-8.

I am sponsored by Discount School Supply which is a nationally recognized company that supplies quality school products at everyday low prices.  Each year they have a booth at the CAEYC and NAEYC convention and each year I attend and present at workshop.  At CAEYC 2016, Discount School Supply will a proud supporter of the association and has gotten “Super Star” Status through their contributions to this wonderful organization!

These conferences are so much fun! I just love to engage with all of the fellow educators that attend. Check out the PARTY at the NAEYC 2015 booth that Discount School Supply sponsored! We pulled out all the stops and engaged teachers in more hands-on creativity than ever before this year. Our goal in the DSS booth area was to provide creativity and rejuvenation, and from the looks of it we were successful. Yay! The paper Top Hats we’re wearing are fun to decorate and super easy to make with our Top Hat Lesson Plan.

Since hands-on discovery is the way we all learn best, we organize DIY experiences by offering a variety of arts materials with just a wee bit of structure and guidance. At NAEYC we highlighted BioColor® one day, and Colorations® Liquid Watercolor another day while providing how-to tips and ideas for both beginners and more seasoned staff. Teachers could sit down and play with our paints and a variety of new collage materials while combining fresh techniques in new ways onto a final craft project.

Here’s a favorite open-ended project: our papier-mâché Secret Boxes. These make wonderful handmade gifts and if you like these teacher-oriented clip art quotes, they are provided here for your use. These quotes are perfect for mixed media creations, and can turn any teacher’s Party into a creative DIY event.

Won’t you join us at CAEYC or your state conference this year? We’ll bring the party!

Materials Shown in this Post:
Paints & Collage Materials
BioColor Painters	BMAR
Glittering Rhinestones Gem Jar	GEMJAR
Iridescent Fabric Shapes	SHINYFAB
Spotted Feathers	SPOTTED
Printed Craft Tape	FABULOUS
Projects To Decorate
Paper Mache Secret Books	PMSEC
White Paper Top Hats	HATSOFF

 

WorkShop at CAEYC 2016 by Anna Reyner

Art, Creativity and Brain Development

Apr 1, 2016 @ 02:00 PM

Modern neuroscience has provided hard evidence that connective pathways in the brain are actually created by repeated early experiences. A child’s early engagement in art activities can help create unique brain connections that will have long-term impact on a child’s life.

Art engages children’s hands, minds and emotions and helps develop valuable cognitive, social-emotional, and multi-sensory skills. Learn to identify the many developmental skills children master through art activities, and how self directed art fosters creativity and self esteem.

“Art & Brain Development”
Repeated experiences with open ended art builds nerve circuits in the brain that influence how a child does in school, in relationships, and in society as a whole. A developmental theory presentation will discuss how art activities facilitate intellectual growth and cognitive development in early childhood. A Power Point presentation on Art in Child Development includes 20 slides of children’s artwork. Participants will review these slides and discuss how each different art activity facilitates specific problem solving, decision making and other cognitive skills.

“Art Therapy: Tools & Techniques for the Classroom”
Participants will be introduced to basic principles of art therapy and simple guidelines for understanding the language of children’s art. Through better understanding the language of art, participants will be better equipped to understand the emotional needs of the children in their care.

Session concludes with a playful hands-on art experience where participants engage with a partner and make their own art.

Fall Art Ideas for Young Children

Fall is here, the leaves are starting to turn and the air is becoming crisper. Hooray! It’s time for the scents and smells of autumn. Here are some fun ways to bring autumn themes into YOUR home or classroom.

Small gourds and Indian corn make great additions to your sensory bin and inspire children to observe, compare and explore nature and its many attributes. This sensory bin promotes STEM learning foundations, as does the observational painting that you can introduce with the same gourds.

This 3-year-old is painting with Colorations® Liquid Watercolor™ as she observes and documents a gourd. Observational drawing and painting is an important way to facilitate critical thinking and brain development in early childhood. Drawing and painting from nature can also slow children down, reduce stress and promote self- regulation. These are important skills for children to learn that go way beyond the more obvious benefits of art-making.

Leaf Punching is a great way to incorporate nature into your fall art activities. Use large hole punches that are easy for young hands to manipulate and punch shapes out of leaves that are at various stages of drying out. You can also let colored leaves dry out completely and crunch them into “leaf glitter” to use in collage work.

Tree bark makes a good natural painting surface. Look for fallen bark pieces on a nature walk this time of year. These chunks of eucalyptus bark made for wonderful paintings by 2- and 3-year-olds. Painting on bark calls for an opaque paint, like acrylic paint.

Don’t forget how much fun it can be to add Colorations® Liquid Watercolor™ to soil and paint with it. This Writing Center incorporates color-tinted soils to Twig Books, a variation of the Paper Bag Book lesson plan from Smart Art Ideas.

Thanks for checking in and have a wonderful autumn.

Materials Used:
Colorations® Liquid Watercolor™, 8 oz – Set of 18 (LW18)

Colorations® Acrylic Paints, 8 oz – Set of 8 (CACRYLIC)

Giant Paper Punches – Set of 8 (BIGPUNCH)

* Brought to you by Discount School Supply®

* For more ideas, visit Art and Creativity in Early Childhood Education

Exciting Colored Craft Tape – Catch the Trend!

Colored craft tapes are exploding with bright colors, patterns and FUN this year, so it’s the perfect time to discover this newly expanded arts and crafts material. Catch onto this trend, and you’ll be amazed at some of the easy applications you’ll discover. Check out these colored tape paintings from Pierce College’s Child Development Center, aren’t they beautiful? As simple paintings they would have looked good – but with the added texture of the craft tapes, they look GREAT and really capture your attention. The addition of colored tape turns a painting into rich media artwork that looks like “gallery art,” but is easy enough for a preschool child to create. Amazing, huh? Thin craft tapes like these originated in Japan where they are called “Washi” tape. Washi comes from wa meaning Japanese and shi meaning paper. Here are close-ups of washi-style patterned tapes. Both the bright solids colors and the patterned tapes are easy for young hands to tear and stick down on paper. Children can design with both solids and patterns on a large piece of butcher paper, placed on the floor. You can also apply tape directly onto the floor or wall since these are “low tack” tapes that do not harm surfaces, and are easy to remove. Grown ups will enjoy using craft tapes too! This child’s room wall shows one of the many ways parents and teachers can use colored tapes to create wall décor that is easy to change and adapt over time. But best of all, you don’t have to be a grown up to make colored tape art – from simple to sublime applications. They are so bright and inspiring, people of all ages will want to dive in and discover their own creative ways to play. I’ve been including craft tapes in my conference workshops this year, and teachers quickly fall in love with them. Recently we added them to paper mache tambourines and “secret books” to everyone’s delight. Here’s a great offer on beautifully colored and patterned craft tapes. Try some soon and see what YOU come up with! And check back next month for another special offer on my recommended arts & crafts products from Discount School Supply®!

Receive 15% OFF the below products!

Use code ANNAJULY at checkout.

Offer valid on below products only. Offer expires 8/31/14.

Material’s Used: Glittery Craft Tape – Set of 10 (SNAZZY) Printed Craft Tape – Set of 10 (PRINTED) Fabulous Printed Craft Tape – Set of 15 (FABULOUS) Craft Tape Super Pack – Set of 20 (VIVID) * Brought to you by Discount School Supply® * For more ideas, visit Art and Creativity in Early Childhood Education

Focus on the Elements of Art: Line

Line is one of the essential “Elements of Art,” and one of every child’s first art experiences. Line precedes all other elements of art. If art is a child’s first language, then line is where the child’s self expression begins.

What does it mean to focus on LINE? It means breaking down the elements of art into their components, expressing those components individually, and then naming them so they become part of your verbal and visual vocabulary.

As we provide art experiences for children, we often forgot that breaking down the elements of art into line, shape and color – is a good way to begin. Teachers who like to inspire children with Paintings from the Masters often include the work of Miro, an artist who emphasized LINE in his work.

But you don’t have to focus on the Masters to emphasize line in your art program.

The Common Core Standards and Pre-K Foundations remind us that LINE and the other elements of art should be an important focus in early childhood education.

Kindergarten Common Core Standards

Visual Art: Analyze Art Elements and Principles of Design

1.3 Identify the elements of art (line, color, shape/form, texture, value, space) in the environment and in works of art, emphasizing line, color, and shape/form.

Pre-K Foundations

Visual Arts, Substrand: Notice, Respond & Engage:

1.1   Communicate about elements appearing in art (such as line, texture, or perspective), and describe how objects are positioned in the artwork.

As you organize your art area and make decisions about what types of materials to provide, keep in mind that line can be explored not just with crayons and markers, but with other exciting materials as well.

I love the idea of exploring line with mud painting, shown here from an Outdoor Classroom Conference in Pasadena.

You can take line into physically active learning by using these new paint rollers, which are also good with clay. Paint rollers let children explore line while engaging both sides of their brains in expansive large muscle movements and “crossing the midline.”

Here’s a video clip of Marble Magnet Painting, a fun science-oriented exploration of line art. The second photo shows the same painting turned into a monoprint.

The new colored tapes are easy for young fingers to tear and are perfect for exploring the quality of line.

Nature oriented art often includes branches as line. Here Master Teacher Kathy Walker shows off one of her student’s nature mobiles.

Pipe cleaners are bendable lines that can be combined with other materials in 3-D art.

Not to be missed are the new (and fabulously inexpensive) Twisty Ties, or Twist and Bend Craft Ties Super Pack (TWISTY). They are shown here wrapped around paintbrush handles, and then combined with Colorations® Super Lightweight Air Dry Putty (CPUTTY).

Last but not least, don’t forget the art of scribbling, which we did at the BAEYC Conference (and many other conferences this year) – reminding us that scribbling with crayons is fun for children and adults alike.

Written language and art…..it all begins with a line. So go find new ways to look at lines and offer children a wide variety of materials to express themselves through line.

Go for a walk and look for cracks in the sidewalk, flower stalks, telephone poles, and other lines in your environment. And as you do, think of the amusing words of the famous artist Paul Klee – “A line is a dot out for a walk.”

Materials Used:
Colorations® Super Lightweight Air-Dry Putty – Colored (CPUTTY)
Twist and Bend Craft Ties Super Pack (TWISTY)

Displaying Children’s Artwork – Budding Artists!

Wait until you see this exciting display of children’s art from the College of the Canyons, and how open-ended preschool art looks when it’s beautifully displayed. This unique art exhibit was coordinated by CDC Director Monica Marshall and master teachers Kathy Walker and Faby Marton. You’ll see a wide range of creative paintings, weavings and collage, and some unique 3-D art applications. Get ready to feast your eyes!

I was particularly moved by the branch weavings that were inspired by reading Margaret Musgrove’s The Spider Weaver, a legend about Kente cloth weaving. The exhibit included children’s thoughts about the story itself. One of the branch weavings was done on burlap and a second version was created without burlap. Here Kathy Walker shows off the branch weaving without burlap, and comments that the burlap inset made it much easier for young children to weave. That’s something I wouldn’t have thought of, but it makes good sense as the burlap offers a large, loose fabric that big needles can carry yarn through. Nice to know!

These process paintings and 3-D constructions show that you can paint and collage onto practically anything. See if you can find the cardboard fruit inserts or paint stir sticks in these photos, they are the foundation for two of these wonderful creations.

Thanks to Monica Marshall, Director of the Child Development Center at College of the Canyons and to the Fine Art Department and Art Gallery Director that made this campus collaboration possible. The exhibit will was up for six weeks and included a beautiful color postcard called Budding Artists.

This awesome exhibit made me think of a story I recently heard from Anne Broussard, the delightful and highly experienced Child Care Coordinator at County of Orange. Knowing how much I love art, Anne told me this thought provoking story.  As part of her job at the County, Anne was assigned to entertaining foreign diplomats and teaching them about early childhood education in the US.  One afternoon she had guests from Iraq who were very interested in our preschool education system, so she was giving them a classroom tour. Her guests noticed some abstract art on the walls of a preschool classroom and asked her if a visiting artist had taught the children how to paint. They found it surprising to find so much art on the walls of the preschool, and were curious about it.  She told them preschool teachers in America are taught to give children the opportunity to make art naturally, to follow their own instincts without imposing adult rules or values. The educators from Iraq were stunned, they really could barely believe that children would naturally create art that looked so “artistic”!

As this Budding Artist’s Exhibit illustrates, children’s natural creations are indeed very “artistic,” and it is precisely this open-ended discovery that gives art its true value. As children make their own choices with messy art, they discover the emotional pleasures of sensory and tactile play while developing important cognitive and social-emotional skills….skills that will help them in life.

As Abraham Maslov has said, “Art education is important not because it turns out artists or art products, but because it seems to turn out better people.”

Group Art Activity: Tennis Ball Painting!

Summer is almost over and here in Los Angeles school has already started. But for many children, there’s still a final stretch of summer freedom and the joys of outdoor play.

Here’s a creative group art idea from Danielle Monroy, who own and operates Creative Care for Children in Santa Barbara.

Let Danielle’s children inspire you to take advantage of the final stretches of summer weather with messy art in the great outdoors.

Ingredients:
1 small plastic pool
Colorations® Simply Washable Tempera, poured into plastic tubs
An equal number of tennis ball
Salad tongs
Cooperative children
Large sheets of white paper

Stir together and serve with a smile!

Reports Danielle: Some of the great things about this project? It was a truly cooperative activity – it only works when everyone works together and the more they do, the more giggles are produced!

During outdoor play sometimes children need more large motor play. This is a wonderful large motor activity that includes art, collaboration and concentration!

Danielle and I will be co-presenting on Science and Sensory Play at the CAEYC conference in April 2014. We’re calling it STEM to STEAM – combining art and science in the early childhood classroom. We’ll post new handouts on that topic on the blog here, so you can also try them out. Stay tuned, and thanks for checking in!    It’s a pleasure staying connected with people like you who actively explore new ideas and embrace their own creativity.

Materials Used:
Colorations® Simply Washable Paint – set of 11 (SWT16)
Butcher Paper Rolls (P4018)
Sand & Water Activity Tubs – set of 4 (TUBS)

* Brought to you by Discount School  Supply®

* For more ideas, visit Art and Creativity in Early Childhood Education

Gazebo Park School at Esalen Institute

Photo courtesy of Esalen Institute.

The month of May is beautiful in most parts of the US, and California is no exception.  These photos are from a recent trip up the California coast where I took an art class at Esalen Institute. A place my cousin refers to as “that famous meditation retreat.”  Followed by, “You are so lucky to be going there!”  Indeed, I did feel lucky to be going there, especially because I was going for ME – for pure, personal replenishment.  And replenishment was something I sorely needed. Have you heard the term “compassion burnout” at conferences lately? I was beginning to relate a bit too much to that expression, and I longed for relief.

The Esalen grounds were bursting with color, and the Gazebo Park School was there to accommodate parents attending classes. Every day I walked by the nursery school on my way to class and marveled at children playing in this unique, natural environment.  There is no cell service at the retreat, and that helped me stay present. My iPhone stayed packed in my suitcase for all 5 days, imagine. That factor alone helped my eyes re-focus outward.

After a particularly good day of painting, I stopped to take pictures of the Gazebo Park School. The children had gone home for the day. I was first taken with the overall beauty and simple aesthetics of this outdoor school. Then my eye picked up several recycling ideas that I fell in love with and thought I’d share here. Like these planters made from plastic milk jugs, hanging from nylon ropes. How can I have been in so many schools over the years, and not seen this before? My eyes must have missed it, this is such an obvious and simple idea…and it’s free!

Or how about this empty picture frame set up in front of the garden? At first I thought this frame was abandoned or waiting to be trashed. Then I realized it was intentionally positioned in front of the garden, as a “view finder” so that children could position themselves and look through the frame from different angles, creating different garden “paintings” in their imaginations. How clever is that? It’s also free, and a good way to repurpose old picture frames.

The music area was created from a combination of bells and kitchen pots and pans.   Are you inspired yet? I read and agreed with the school’s mission statement about the natural environment.

Simple, cheerful artwork covered the walls of the schoolhouse buildings. Don’t think you’re not artistic enough to pull something like this off, because it’s children’s work combined with some adult organization skills. Your own outdoor playhouse could look just as nice, even if you live and work in the city.

Last of all, how’s this for a clever recycling idea?  It’s an old rubber tire, turned inside out and used to contain a garden hose. Who thinks of these things? Ahh….creativity.  It’s so exciting to see it in action.

I do love my iPhone, my laptop, and my other tech gadgets. They make my life easier in many ways. But the more time I spend looking at a screen, the more time I need to balance my psyche with things that inspire me on a deeper human level. I feel incredibly fortunate to have taken time for myself at Esalen this spring. Are you planning something for yourself soon?

Graphic courtesy of Tutorials for Inky Hands.

PS – Three months internships are available at the Gazebo Park School, see website here for more information.

Resources:
The Painting Experience

Materials Used:
Colorations® Simply Washable Tempera Paint, set of 15 (SWTALL)

* Brought to you by Discount School  Supply®

* For more ideas, visit Art and Creativity in Early Childhood Education

Painting and Freedom

“There is no ‘must’ in art because art is free.”  Kandinsky, 1911

Freedom is a powerful concept in our culture. We want our children to experience freedom, yet we continuously impose rules and limits on them. Art is an activity where freedom can be experienced directly, and many rules can be set aside. Through open ended painting experiences, children can safely take risks and enjoy the sense of freedom that comes from acting spontaneously and making their own choices.

I just noticed how the message on my coffee mug matches what I’m writing. I’m drinking coffee from a mug designed by Cambria artist, Fred Babb, who states “art is working on something til you like it, then leaving it that way.” Try a Google or Pinterest search of Fred Babb quotes and you’ll find delightful poster sayings like this one:

Such is the simple and pure relationship of art to freedom. This wonderful splatter  & drip mural created at Creative Care for Children, illustrates the freedom and power of open-ended painting. Children of various ages are visibly engaged in “learning by doing.”

 The black background paper adds an unexpected surprise and provides contrast for brightly pigmented paints. This oversized black photography paper was donated to Creative Care. If you can’t find a donation source, try a black fade resistant Colorations® Prima-Color™ Paper Roll and be sure to use Colorations® Simply Washable Tempera for brilliant colors and washability.

I’ve always been impressed with the art program at Creative Care for Children, which is owned and operated by Danielle Monroy in beautiful Santa Barbara, California.  Danielle is a passionate arts advocate whose expertise in delivering play based learning is inspirational. Danielle let parents know to dress their children for a day of painting.  She also directed children to the water tub for sensory play, or any easy and playful way to encourage “clean up.”

 Print out this “Why Worry?” mini poster from Smart Art if you’d like help getting parents on board for open ended painting at YOUR school. Because once parents understand the positive skills children learn through art, they won’t worry when children come home with paint on their clothes.

Thanks for checking in!  We’d love to hear your comments.

Materials Used:
Colorations® Simply Washable Tempera Paint, set of 15 (SWTALL)
Colorations® Flourescent Simply Washable Tempera Paint, set of 7 (FSWTSET)
Colorations® Prima-Color™ Fade Resistant Paper Roll, black (RESIST)
Smart Art and More Smart Art Ideas, set of 2 (ARTY)

* Brought to you by Discount School  Supply®

* For more ideas, visit Art and Creativity in Early Childhood Education