My name is Faige Kobre a former preschool teacher, director and a graduate of the Bank Street College of Education one of the foremost graduate schools in progressive education.
As a result of my training and my past teaching experince I have become very passionate about arts and crafts for kids. Actually I am more passionate about art for kids. You may not think there is a difference between the two but there is and its a big one.
One of them is extremely beneficial for kids and gives children many skills like raising their self esteem while the other one makes many kids feel incapable and not very good about themselves.
Let me give you both scenarios using a typical holiday project so you can see what I mean.
Let's say its Thanksgiving time in the preschool classroom, and it's arts and crafts time. You as the teacher want to send home a project to the parents. Since turkey is a big part of Thanksgiving, you look through your books or websites to get some ideas on how to make a turkey.
Once you have the idea, you prepare the materials, give them to the children, show them a prepared model of what you will make and help them along as they put together their copycat models.
After they are are done, the children see 20 turkeys strung up along the classroom wall. Noe between you and me how good do you think kids or anyone for that matter can feel when they can't even tell which one of the projects theirs.
Now lets take scenario #2. Art for kids (notice that the crafts was left out)
You have decided that you are going to let the children have as much part of this project as they can. You tell them they are going to make turkeys. You discuss with them beforehand what turkeys do and what they look like etc.
( Maybe you even bring in pictures of turkeys so they get an idea of what they are going to make)
You then give them a whole assortment of materials that can be used to make turkeys and you allow them to create one their own. Children that are used to traditional arts and crafts will have a much harder time being independent while children used to this way of arts and crafts will know exactly what to do.
20 different children, 20 different turkeys. Now how do you think the children will feel when they see their projects. And how much self respect will they have when they were given the trust to create on their own using their own ideas within a structure. They can also now easily easily spot the turkey that is theirs. (see picture above)
That is what I would call Smart Art .
Art that not only raises kids self esteem but makes them smarter.
Arts and crafts for kids, especially in the classroom, should be used as a vehicle to help children develop, be creative and feel good about themselves not just as a copycat model to bring home to parents.
Faige Kobre
www.smartartforpreschool.com learning how to bring progressive arts and crafts for kids into your classroom.
