We love art around here and we try to offer creative opportunities for kids as often as we can. We have our Art Room which is wildly popular, we have a twice monthly Art Club for school age kids and recently we began to offer Petite Picasso for the preschool artists in our community. And let me tell you, the preschoolers (and their grown ups) LOVE IT!
Art programming for preschoolers is super fun and delightfully messy. We set up our programming space with folding tables flat on the floor (we don’t put the legs up) and wrapped in paper. Then we put the supplies right in the middle of the tables. Kids go right for the supplies and start playing. Last month we painted with tubes (pictured). Past projects include: chalk drawing, play doh, paint & shaving cream and surprisingly popular, building with felt shapes on the wall.
Usually the kids don’t even take their art home (process not product for this age) and they are done after about 20 minutes. We keep the program open for an hour and families come and go.
Angela Krajcar
I have a First Art Program for children 18 months-3 years. It’s the same type of program as Petite Picasso. – Process not Project art. I had to add a second program for children that aged out. It’s a lot of fun and the parents are great with helping to clean up!
One summer, I had them do finger painting on cardstock. I put them in dollar store frames and hung them in our art gallery. The parents and grandparents loved it.
Renee Perron
I love this! I love to see how you are using “messy” art materials like paint. That is one thing I haven’t tried yet with my preschool story class kids. I’m hesitant because it would be hard for families to take home wet artwork. I’m also fearful that parents would get upset if their child gets messy or dirty. But I was glad to hear how you mentioned that most families didn’t feel the need to take home the art – that it is more about the process and not the product. Good thinking.
And if I were to try to do a preschool art studio program, it sounds like advertising it as “Dress for a Mess!” might also be helpful to let families know what to expect when it comes to art exploration.
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