Welcome to the Art Area in Harmony's House! Generally speaking, art areas and explore tables are best housed on flooring that can easily be cleaned up: no rugs or carpet! So, the Art Area is logically set up in the kitchen of my home. Children can put on smocks, paint, and then move their paintings to the drying racks easily. They can use either table to sit down for drawing, cutting, gluing, play-doh sculpting and more.
Let's take a closer look at what is on the shelves. Some of these items are long-term residents; they will be here year around. Markers and crayons for writing, drawing, and coloring are some examples of staples that are always in the art area. Q-tips, cotton balls, ribbons, and streamers, however, get rotated out and replaced with other materials dependent on the children's interests, skill levels, and themes.
Glue and scissors will always be accessible in the art area unless the average age of the class is very young. Tape, stickers, craft sticks, and jewels are new additions to the art area this month.
To keep children interested in working in the Art Area, it is important to rotate the open-ended materials to inspire greater curiosity and drive for exploration. It is also important to diversify the materials to emphasize different aspects of fine motor development: writing, squeezing, cutting, smashing, building, peeling, tracing, etc.
And there you have it... an awesome Art Area ready for kids to come and enjoy.
