Drawing helps children organize their ideas for expression in story writing in several ways. Drawing promotes the first writing, and this writing becomes the first reading material that children themselves author. Children draw pictures and write to organize ideas and construct meaning from their experiences. Open-ended opportunities to write and…

Discusses ways in which teachers and parents respond to children's artwork. Presents six traditional approaches to responding to children's art and analyzes these approaches in terms of each one's impact on the child artist. Suggests alternate and more appropriate ways to respond to children about their art. (BB)

In this article, the authors describe Picture Power, a project they implemented during late spring in a full-day Montessori preschool-kindergarten program in Philadelphia. In this project, the authors set out to gather information about children's visual learning. The underlying question was whether artwork could provide useful clues to inform…

Discusses the renewed interest in clay as a modeling compound in early childhood programs; describes the nature of clay and presents a working vocabulary. Suggests methods of working with clay, including introducing clay to children, discovering its uses, clean up, firing clay, and finishing baked clay. Includes activity suggestions and…

Offers practical advice for teaching art in early childhood classrooms. Encourages respect for children's individual artistic style. Discusses paints and markers, blocks, fingerpaints, bubbles, collages, and other art materials. Includes recipes for fingerpaint. (GH)

Appreciating children's art involves considering all work as an expressive form which conveys its own meaning. Characteristics that can be examined include the medium and materials used; the size, shape, colors, and angles present; the subject, scene, idea, or emotion represented; and the nature and origin of the idea for the work. (JW)

Describes the types of classroom art experiences that should be provided for young children and discusses reasons teachers continue to rely on recipe art lessons. Suggests learning center activities and materials, as well as ways that teachers can facilitate creativity. Considers how coloring books dampen children's motivation to draw. (KB)

Describes the advantages of using household food ingredients for art and science activities. Also discusses experiences with foods that are appropriate and inappropriate. (AS)

Describes how preschool teachers guided 4-year-olds in a classroom project that integrated constructing with wire, drawing, and storytelling. Notes that children monitored and directed their work and responded to learning challenges. Shows how teachers supported learning of individual children as children began to influence each other's learning.…

Examines the place of art appreciation in early childhood education programs. Discusses historical changes in philosophies of art education and young children's capability for appreciating art. Presents suggestions for including art appreciation in the preschool curriculum, and describes ways to tie art activities to children's interests,…