Originally Posted by Crystal:
I love the idea of all of the recyclable "loose part" materials. I love that the children will be able to have containers for climbing, pulling, hiding, seeking, building, and simply using their imaginations. I love the idea of art always being available to the children.
Now, I don't have "no toys" but I do not have any battery operated toys, and I have LOTS of the elements that you describe. I offer lots of loose parts....boxes, fabric pieces, tubes, planks, rocks, piecs of wood and bark, pine cones, etc. We also have art available to the children at all times and much of it is readily accessible, to all of the children, from a young age. The easel is typically set up and available for use, and we always have glue/collage materials, markers, crayons, colored pencils, drawing paper, etc. within reach for the children to use when they choose. I have found that having it accessible and teaching them proper usage for materials from a young age allows them to be self-sufficient with the materials by the time they are about two years old. It takes a little extra patience and guidance when they are little, mostly redirection, but I find it is well-worth the extra effort, as they are allowed to expore materials in depth at will they become very creative and I never have to do CRAFT type activites....they create beautiful pieces of art, without any direction from me, and they elarn to manage the materials and clean up after themselves. In the end, there is alot less work for me involved.
When you say you have your easel set up does that mean with paint and brushes available at all times? Are your kids able to paint with these art projects
at will and with little adult involvement as early as a new two year old? What about glitter, and small things like googly eyes, beads. beans ... stuff that is small.
From the list you gave yes that woud be very easy to manage: As long as
the glue was supervised .. using collage materials, markers, crayons, colored pencils, drawing paper, boxes, fabric pieces, tubes, planks, rocks, piecs of wood and bark, pine cones, etc would be pretty easy.