51吃瓜网

By: Laurel Bongiorno

A three year old sits at the kitchen table extremely focused on his art.

He鈥檚 gathered white paper, a glue bottle, scissors, small bits of colored paper, tissue paper, and finger paint from his own special art box. He chooses which paper to cut and which to tear. He intently glues each small item to the white paper, creating a collage. He then finger paints bright red all around his gluing, creating a framed-effect. 听With delight, he shows his sister his creation, and begins to make another piece of art.

A four-year-old waits for instructions while her mother gathers materials for her to create a flower basket.

Her mom places a piece of large white paper, a glue bottle, a pair of scissors and small pieces of tissue paper on the table and says, 鈥淥kay, you can make this however you want --- BUT the basket is the base and I cut that for you, and then the tissue papers pieces are the flowers. 听Let me show you how to tear the tissue paper.鈥� 听The four-year-old pastes the basket in place and glues the flowers, creating the basket of flowers as planned. 听She shows her mother what she鈥檚 made and says, 鈥淚s this right?鈥�

These examples show two very different types of art experiences. 听In the first, a process art experience, the child has many opportunities to explore the materials, think, express himself, and create. The second is a product focused art experience where the child follows directions given to her to make a predetermined end product.

These two types of art experiences don鈥檛 support children鈥檚 development in the same ways. It's important to know the difference in order to offer children art experiences that support their creativity, enjoyment of art, thinking skills, and healthy development.

Process Art Experiences Support Many Aspects of Children鈥檚 Development

Physical Development:听Your child鈥檚 small motor skills develop as he glues, draws, paints, and plays with clay or homemade dough. 听Small motor skills are important for future writing.

Language & Literacy Development:听As you talk with your child her vocabulary expands when you name new art materials, tools, and concepts such as听scissors,听collage,听purple,听wide,听sticky, and听smooth. Your child often tells you about the ideas she鈥檚 expressing through the art and this type of conversation supports literacy development.

Social and Emotional Development: 听There is joy and self-exploration in self-expression. Art supports the development of self-regulation and self-control as your child focuses, makes choices, and feels successful. 听The ability to focus is important to future school success.

Product Art Experiences Do Not Support Rich Learning

Product art offers children a few learning opportunities (following directions and developing small motor control) but does not offer the rich opportunities for cognitive, language, and social and emotional development open ended art experiences offer.

Clues To Identifying Product and Process Art

Product Art:

• Your child follows a sample, pattern, or model and follows instructions
• Adults know in advance what the artwork will look like
• There's a right way and a wrong way
• Adults feel the need to "fix" the art
• Patterns and cut-outs are easily available online

Process Art:

• There's no sample, pattern, or model
• Your child explores lots of interesting materials
• Adults have no idea what children will create
• There's no right or wrong way to do the art
• Children are relaxed and focused
• Your child wants to do more
• The art is truly an "original" every time

In addition,听children react differently听to these two types of art experiences.

Children doing听product art听might say:

• "Can I be done now?"
• "Is this right?"
• "Mine doesn't look right."
• "I can't do this!"

Children doing听process art听might say:

• "Can I have more time?"
• "Can I have more paper?
• "Is there any yellow?"
• "I want to make another one"

Parents Can Offer Exploratory Process Art Experiences:

• Provide a place for art materials such as a special bin or drawer
• Save recycled materials (like magazines) children can later use to create collages
• Include watercolor paints, finger paints, and offer brushes and interesting painting tools听such as toothbrushes and potato mashers听
• Offer many drawing materials like markers, crayons, and colored pencils of different sizes
• Have lots of blank paper (rather than coloring books)
• Include tape, glue, and scissors
• Make homemade dough and offer clay
• Try art outside 鈥� use natural materials like leaves in art projects or paint outside for a change of setting

Dr. Laurel Bongiorno, Dean of the Division of Education and Human Studies at Champlain College, writes and presents on a variety of early care and education topics -- play as learning, parents' and teachers' understanding of play, process art, and early childhood leadership. 听She is a past president of the Vermont Association for the Education of Young Children.