ART

Art promotes young children's ability to explore concepts, emotions and perspectives. It supports fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination and complex decision making. Art is an identity, emergent self-regulation and sensory processing (McArdle & Boldt, 2018). For inclusive students who may have less verbal expression or neurodivergent learning styles, art is often their voices. Art nurtures multiple correct responses and a growth mindset. When children create what they know, they inadvertently experience math patterns and scientific explorations,investigations, and narrative inquiries (Church, 2020).

Theories and Perspectives

Vygotsky's sociocultural theory dictates that art is symbolic cognition (adult scaffolding in artistic achievement helps) (Zhou et al., 2019). The Reggio Emilia philosophy relies on one of "the hundred languages of children" being artistic (Rinaldi, 2018). Children are not born creative according to McArdle (2020); they need time, space and materials to discover and become creative. Piaget posited constructivist classrooms wherein children create mental schemas learned through drawing, painting and sculpting gleaned through sensory explorations.

Resources and Technologies

An ideal creative art area would have an excess of open-ended natural resources: paint, recycled goods, clay, pastels, textiles, in addition to light tables and nature-inspired materials for sensory experiences. Procreate, Tayasui Sketches, and Book Creator aid in multimodal creations. Seesaw serves as a digital documentation tool through which children may showcase their artistic endeavors. Technology should be purposefully used to supplement—not usurp—hands-on activities (Woods, 2023). Materials should be rotated to encourage varying ways of thinking while inquiry and reflection should be ongoing.

Activities Using Art

Ages 0–2:

  • Mark-making with large crayons on large paper
  • finger painting with edible yoghurt and food colouring

    • 2-3 years:

  • Sensory collages made of foil, felt, and leaves
  • Using kid-safe dry-erase markers to draw emotions on mirrors

    • 3 to 5 years:

  • Discussing sharing and emotions through painting after reading The Rainbow Fish
  • Clay creatures made by observing and listening while playing outside

    • 6 to 8 years old:

  • Self-portraits created digitally with the Procreate app
  • Using a variety of mediums, a family and community collage

    • Critical Reflection

    Recent studies show that children investigate through creativity when they have the opportunity within an open structure of art exploration. According to McArdle and Boldt (2018), creativity is not something children have; it's something children do, given the time, space and resources. Children participate in artistic thinking as long as it's not required of them nor are they compelled to create a final product for display.

    is also cross-curricular, as per Church (2020). Children draw their scientific discoveries or use art to show patterns learned in numeracy. Art is also linked to socio-emotional development. Providing mirrors for drawing and painting feelings explores identity and self-regulation (McArdle, 2020), especially for neurodivergent learners or English language learners.

    New technologies such as iPads and proper art applications (like Procreate) can translate ideas to digital realms, allowing children to explore without fear of “mistakes” (Woods, 2023) although technology must be accompanied by sensory, hands-on experiences for full processing.

    Art is a democratic process there is no one right way to do something and in the last decade, art has been shown to meet learning outcomes in the new EYLF (2022). Professional practices of inclusive, diverse and accessible require all ages.

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