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Monday, July 14, 2008

The story of the Art supplies




I love crafts and art. I am not an artist and can hardly draw. I am not afraid of giving scissors, glue or paint to my children but until about 8 months ago I would keep all art supplies in my crafts/school cabinet. (see pictures here Practical Life at Home) My children never asked to do art projects. I always had to ask if anyone wanted to color, paint, glue, make this or that...

I then started to read about Montessori education and enrolled my 2 year old in a Montessori school. I then pulled out some shelves I had that I was not using and put all of our art supplies out neatly. I had a box with the stamps, a box with glue and stuff to glue onto paper, paper, scissors, paint, paint brushes, markers, crayons, etc... I was very afraid of doing this. I thought for sure that my 2 year old would just make a huge mess out of this. But to my surprise she did not. Not only that but now my children were spontaneously creating art. They did not ask. They just got out what they wanted to work on and worked on it. Ever since I have been working on improving our "Art" work area. They really enjoy it. I now have an easel I purchased at IKEA and free kid size aprons from Home Depot (we go to their children's craft activities). I rotate some of the items for interest and I still initiative craft activities.

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