the instructions said that each colour should dry before adding the next but a certain little boy was a bit impatient the final result was OK though, I had to bake them for 30 mins to set the paint but it turned out to be a good rainy day activity, thanks mom!
once we had finished the egg cups he still wanted to do more painting so I whipped up some Easter egg shapes (rather wonky ones, don't look too close!) and he painted them in really well which surprised me.
When I was at art school I had two lecturers who couldn't be more opposite but they team taught our still life and fine art classes. The one teacher was very uptight, she dressed very conservatively and her art style was precise the other teacher was an ageing hippy with long flowing grey hair, she wore long flowery shirts and several strands of beads (I also found out at a later date that she was also a bit of a pot head). Anyway, they were forever giving us conflicting advice, the hippy was dead against colouring books saying that it restricted a child's artistic flow whereas Ms Uptight saw colouring books as a good way for a child to learn proper control of a pencil or paintbrush. Ever since I have tried to decide which teacher was right and I think now that they both were. I give Babyebi plenty of free creative art work to do but sometimes I will print off colouring pages for him too, the same can be said for projects, sometimes we will do a "cookie-cutter" craft although I try to let him to do as much as possible, I tend to do these crafts when I am trying to teach him something else with it so the craft itself isn't always the main focus. I like to let him do free-style crafts too, I think a balance of all crafts and arts is the best way forward with a developing child. What do you think?
Great post! I love the egg cups! I agree with your stance on arts and crafts. O has done very little coloring in a coloring books, but I'm sure its something we'll do when she's a little older. I LOVE to color in coloring books :), so I hope she will, too.
ReplyDeleteI write the curriculum with the owner of my school for our preschool class and over the week I try really hard to do a mix of free style crafts and a mix of crafts that require the children to try and stick to instructions to create something...I love to do collage with the kids the most because of the kinds of things they come up with!
ReplyDeleteI think it is very important for children to have a mix of both styles.
As for coloring books, we have a lot of coloring pages for kids at school.....they can choose the picture they wish to do or if they don`t want to color they can do origami or drawing or cutting.....We leave it up to them....In fact we don`t make them do art and crafty stuff except during the craft time in the afternoon.....During their free-time they can do whatever they want and more than half of the children will head towards the craft room while the other half will do something else.
The egg cups are great, and it seems like babyebi is having a lot of fun!!!
I agree with you that a balance of free art, craft and coloring pages is good. I also agree with lulu that it is nice to let them choose. I have noticed that lately my son doesn't want to have anything to do with coloring books. If I offer him one he says, "Can I have a piece of paper to draw?" It's kind of exciting seeing him decide for himself what he wants.
ReplyDeleteThe egg cups look like so much fun. I bet it's good for little hands to paint os something besides a flat surface sometimes too.