Making Connections in Art: Legomania!

Greetings Friends and Family!

Here we are again...

Paper "Lego MiniFigure"

I'd like to share with you some of the great things we have been up to in the Preschool Art Studio.

Today we experienced "Art on a Cart". I teach at a multi building Early Childhood facility in which children get to join me by talking a little walk to the Art Studio. However today that was not possible due to inclement weather.

It was raining quite a bit, so I ventured out in the rain with all my supplies.

First I would like to share with you a little bit about my teaching philosophy.

My number #1 rule is "There are no mistakes in ART!" This is a phrase I learned early in my teaching career. It was one that is truth for me and has stuck with me over the years.

I teach from a flexible point of view which includes children's initiate ability to create, prior knowledge, presentation of new information along with modeling.

For example: I might say in session do not mix the colors! Simply because we may want the colors to stay pure as possible. But guess what if they get mixed up, that's ok too. Because "There are no mistakes in Art!"

Let's get started!

Each Art Studio Session my goal is to engage many aspects of learning but most importantly I strive to make a connection between Literacy and Art.

Literacy: Is the relationship of one's ability to read and write as well as speak a language. This also includes that letters have sounds, those sounds together create words and words have meaning.

Young children often make connections to points of interest.

The subject of interest that we are going to explore is "Legos" especially since "Lego The Movie" came out.

This weeks literacy connections is related to Speaking and Art terminology.

We conversed and explored the 3 D's this week.

What are the 3 D's you say? Why what else? Drawing! Designing! Decorating!

I learned about children's prior knowledge by asking if they have heard of any of the 3 D's? By this point most of my 3, 4, and soon to be 5 year olds have heard of these Art terms.

Next we define them:

Drawing: to make a picture of something using crayons, markers, pencils or paint by using lines and shapes.

Student example: "Drawing is when you make a picture of something!"

Designing: to use our thinking caps to plan what materials and drawing tools we want to use to draw and decorate a picture

Student example: "Design is when you design something on top of something"

Decorating: To add shapes with paper, scissors or other art materials to make a picture.

Student example: "Decorating is when you put sparkles on something!"

Modeling:

Here children were provide with color copies of various "Lego" faces. These were used as inspiration so that each child could create there own "Lego" face.