Art 101

I recently read an interview with MaryAnn F. Kohl at The Artful Parent...Interview With MaryAnn F. Kohl on the Importance of Art. This motivated me to start collecting art materials and to start planning some art "projects" for Sam. (There are a couple of art studios near me that offer parent/child classes, but not until age 2...we plan to start one of those in the Fall.) After reading some reviews on Amazon, I decided to purchase the book called First Art. It seemed (from the reviews) to be geared to young children (even as young as Sam). I really like MaryAnn Kohl's philosophy of "Art is a process, Not a Product"... she says "art is an adventure and an exploration of materials and ideas". I love this school of thought...not only in art, but in almost all learning experiences. This idea of "discovery learning" is always what I aimed for in my classroom when I was teaching. So yesterday we did our first project called "Feelie Goop"...the ol' cornstarch and water mixture. I did have to show Sam that he could touch it and from there, I let him do what he wanted.












We're a little cramped right now, and Sam's playroom is actually our formal dining room that is only about a 10x12 room. But, I've tried to make him an art center anyway...I've made sure to put all dangerous objects, those he can't play with unsupervised, out of reach. I'd also like to have a low table he can stand at and make messes on...preferably in the kitchen so the floor is easy to clean up. I thought about making one, but I think I'm going to get a card table and have my father-in-law cut the legs short...that way I can fold the legs and put it away when we're not using it. Unfortunately, we just have. no. space. for a dedicated messy art area right now.












Sam's art cart was a gift from Nana, purchased from Lands End. The wall storage you see with the blue bins came from IKEA. The wall art display windows are also from IKEA. The other storage containers on top are just generic little plastic containers that I got at Target.