A Peek Inside Our Playroom: Revamping the Art Center

 If you've followed my series on playroom setup, you know that I do a lot of rotation and toy swapping in general here. In part, this is because we live in a small space and do not have room to have everything out at once. In part I also do this to keep things fresh and interesting to my kids while cutting down on clutter. I rotate materials based on season, theme and interest. More recently, I have included S in the process of choosing toys to have out and toys to put away for later when I do a rotation. This helps eliminate some of his feelings of disorientation when things change and also encourages his sense of autonomy. I make shifts when themes, seasons or holidays come up, but sometimes I will also make a change when things seem to get a bit stale.

Since S has started preschool, his interest in our Art Center has really decreased. I am not a "project pusher" and aside from providing opportunity, I don't have a specific agenda with our play areas. However, I did wonder if, in part, his lack of interest in our Art Center had to do with what was on the shelf more than simply being a factor of already having done activities related to art and writing in school each morning. Having a lot of holidays in the last month also meant that this area was closed off for a good portion of each week. Out of sight, out of mind. After the holidays ended, I decided to do a strategic revamp of our Art Center. This time, rather than adding more items in, I actually took a lot of things out. Less is so very often more when it comes to drawing in the interest of young children. Sure enough, S was back at it the very next day, exploring a tray of collage materials in shades of red, yellow and orange.

I loaded up a tray with ribbon, tissue paper, scraps of shiny paper, artificial Fall leaves and dot stickers in shades of red, yellow, and their combined form, orange! A glue stick and some white glue provided all the luring S needed before selecting a piece of white paper from the bottom shelf to make his own collage.

He created and dictated a collage story of a train (made from shiny paper shapes) that was carrying leaves up a train track.

 From the first time I introduced our Art Center, I have always had bins of markers, crayons and colored pencils accessible at all times. When S's interest seemed to decrease in all of these items, I wondered if there were "too many options" out and what would happen if I isolated a couple of colors at a time. In his school, S focuses on learning one color each month. While he now knows all of his colors now, many children struggle with learning colors. One reason for this is that colors are rarely isolated in our environment and there are also many shades of a color that fall under the same name. Rather than providing crayons, markers and colored pencils in all of the colors, I selected a variety of mediums in red and yellow, the first two colors focused on in S's classroom.
Additionally, children are often taught about primary colors mixing into secondary colors, but not always given the opportunity to explore this, hands-on. Providing individual mediums in primary colors invites the process of color mixing to occur naturally at the hands of young, curious artists.

A tray of paper and shapes in shades of orange, our target secondary color, along with some scissors invite S to explore one of his favorite activities, cutting practice! He can use his scraps for collage or focus instead on just practicing the act of cutting and cleaning up the tiny results. I find it helpful to include a tray or small container for collecting tiny scraps and it's always useful to have a dustpan and brush nearby for independent cleanup. 

In lieu of our Writing Center bin with a variety of materials to encourage pre-writing and writing, I set out one clipboard with a notepad and one jar of pencils and pens. This is handy when you need to quickly jot down a dictated note, list or practice some lines and shapes that will surely yield letters and words before we know it!

A tray of black paper and white chalk and crayons encourage the exploration of light on dark, an extension
of our Bereishis play theme.

S and Y loved the basket of books about colors! Adding literature in unlikely places is my favorite way to encourage reading to happen all around the house. Indeed, S went right away and made a bee line for this basket! It can also be fun to include a piece of art that is particularly interesting, post cards, books about art or artists or something from nature...

As an extension on our upcoming theme of rainbows in parshas Noach, I set out a tray of art materials in rainbow colors and some watercolor paints, a brush, and a jar for filling with water to use as S explores the colors of the rainbow and mixing colors together. Art mats, a smock and white paper are provided as always so that any of the materials can be used independently as the inspiration strikes.

We are having renewed fun with our Art Center now. It is so refreshing to remember that loss of interest does not always mean there is not enough to do--it is often a sign of sensory overload and this time, for sure, less is definitely more!
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Happy Playing!