Animal Art

A couple weeks ago, in the midst of our airplane inquiry, one of the children brought in a bird that she had made at home out of plastic spoons and kitchen clips. This sparked a conversation about the differences between birds and airplanes - how are they different? What do they have in common? They both fly, but do they fly in the same way? How do they move differently, and why? The children came to many conclusions based on their knowledge about airplanes and birds, and one of these conclusions was that birds are living, and planes are non-living. This broadened our scope to exploring animals vs. machines.

At the art studio, where we had been creating airplanes, we started creating animals!

Zebra

Bird

Snake

Birds

Giraffe

Elephant, bird, tiger, bird

You may notice something about these animals...you may notice that they don't all look like the animals they're supposed to be! And that is fine. At this developmental stage, children don't make art with a clear image in their mind of what they want the final outcome to be, and an understanding of what they need to do to make that happen. They are also still developing the fine motor and spatial awareness skills that contribute to art as we understand it. Right now they focus on the process of creating, instead of what they want to create. They develop their artistic skills by experimenting hands-on with materials, building on their work and developing their ideas as they go. Sometimes at school we show them different techniques - for example how to use scissors and glue - but we also encourage them to work independently and experiment with different ways to make their creation what they want it to be - even if it doesn't exactly look like "art" to us! This is called open-ended or process-based art, and we love watching your children enjoy it! More on this in my next post!

Ms. Snyder and Ms. Hammond