Children's Art Exhibit Examples

Foam Tray Collage

Saran Wrap Art

Elmer's Parade

Foam Tray Collage

Pre-school, West Contra Costa County School District
Materials: Foam trays, dyed pasta, beans, yarn styrofoam stuffing, torn paper, cardboard tubes (cut into small tubes), corrugated cardboard, glue
Process: Since we had some discontinued foam trays which were black, we dyed the sticks and cardboard with yellow food coloring. The children arranged the collected items on their trays and then used white glue to set them in place.

Saran Wrap Art

Nevada City Elementary, Nevada City School District

Materials: white art paper, primary colors of tempera, saran wrap

Process: Wet white paper, dab splotches of slightly watered down tempera. Lay a piece of plastic wrap on the wet paint and students squish the plastic wrap together. Let it partially dry, then remove the wrap to dry. Mount on construction paper.

Elmer's Parade

Fall River Elementary, Fall River Joint Unified

Materials: white paper, tempera paint, rope or twine, "junk" for printing-potato masher, sponges, blocks, bristle blocks, combs, forks, strawberry baskets, and small classroom manipulatives

Proces: The children listened to the book Elmer by David McKee. In the story all the elephants paint themselves to be like Elmer, the patchwork elephant. The children drew a large elephant and chose a background color for their elephant. Then they used the various "junk" items to decorate the elephants.

CKA Presents, Art Really Teaches

A collection of Children's Art examples with a description of materials needed for each project and the process used.

Why Teach Art?

All children need a variety of experiences to assist them in exploring their environment. Through art, children learn to value their own uniqueness and to appreciate the individuality of others. The teacher needs to choose art activities of variety which will contribute to all aspects of a child's development.

In summary, from the California Kindergarten Association publication, Art Really Teaches, Dr. Violet Robinson, President 1992-94 discusses Child Development Through Art.

Personal Development

Art provides an opportunity to augment creative expression, self discovery, self esteem and self concept. Dr. Robinson points out that each work of art creates a sense of achievement in the child or children who create the art.

Social Development

She notes that social development is enhanced as children learn to cooperate during group art projects. When individual projects are combined as in art quilts, young artists gain a sense of individual contribution to a group product and develop a "we" feeling.

Physical Development

Small muscles, eye-hand coordination, dexterity, and a sense of rhythm are developed as children engage in art activities.

Language Development

The publication notes that the young learners use art as a means of expression that does not rely on verbal or decoding skills. Language is applied and their vocabulary is increased as the children talk about their art projects. Dr. Robinson also notes that drawing contributes to the development of writing and written expression in emergent writers.

Cognitive Development

The benefits of cognitive development are discussed thoroughly in the following areas:

Correspondences such as one-to-one or one-to-several
Part-Whole relations
Order, relationships, seriation
Symbolic representation
Classification
Spatial relationships
Dimensional relations
States of matter
Number and quantity
Topological relationships

This publication was just released in January, 1997 at the California Kindergarten Conference in San Francisco. Art Really Teaches was published to help teachers, administrators and parents understand the value of using art in the educational process. Photos highlight some of the many samples which are on display each year at the conference. All samples are sent to the conference by teachers and students from all over to share their creations with teachers everywhere.

Highlights of Art Really Teaches are articles, descriptions of 'How To' of each of the 36 pictured samples, directions for 'Art Prints and Projects', 'Recipes for Art Projects' such as Fluffy Paint, Soap Snow, four different Finger Paints, Colored Sand, Modeling Clay and many, many more, suggestions for 'Organizing a Mural', and 'Information for Parents'.

Art Really Teaches was edited by Ruth Velasquez. Linda Becker, Liz Blek, Zelda Le Frak, Pat Rees-Miller, Vi Robinson, Cindy Tuisku, and Tom Velasquez all joined together to develop and produce Art Really Teaches.

To order Art Really Teaches contact:
The California Kindergarten Association
1710 So. Amphlett Blvd. Suite 117
San Mateo, CA 94402
(415) 286-1067