Last week I observed the room where children had some great art experiences or resources for art – making, e.g. paints, easels, crayons, colour pencils. The only problem was that they were not fully set up and apart from the blackboard and chalk there was nothing for them to make marks or explore art outside.

So I decided to fix it… And the first thing to consider is materials for the visual arts, modelling, painting and drawing

I added more opportunities for drawing, by adding clipboards to the outdoor areas and setting up mini writing centre, with pencils, envelopes and stamps. I saw a lot of children got engaged with stamping on paper and envelopes.

In order to protect paper form the weather, I placed A4 paper in the outdoor cupboard, which is located under the veranda roof. This area is quite shaded and allow children to sit down, relax, concentrate and socialise.

I added whiteboard markers and blue tack to the outdoor white board , which also supported mark – making and drawing. Children started to draw collaboratively and used vertical lines more, due to the change of service. Whiteboard is great for all body exercise.

WATERCOLOURS

Next time, I would add more watercolours (you can find them second hand or in opshop – they usually are quite cheap or you can make your own with food dyes.

CHALK

I would also consider other materials, like crashed chalk and large outdoor paintbrushes (you can buy them in improvement store – also very affordable).

CLAY

Clay is a messy experience and not every teacher wants to deal with cleaning involved in such art. Yet, consider having clay for modelling rather than play dough. It really develops children’s hand muscles. It is 3D and can be collected during bush walk, not necessarily commercially acquired. With clay and muffin trays children can create their own mixed “paints” and use them on sticks, rocks, butcher paper.

I would also add easels with paint prepared before the session and pallets, so that children mix the colours on their pallets, rather than in the paint jars.

TOOLS

There are many tools I will use in outdoor art activities – blowing bubbles with food dye in them; using paper straws (individual per child); using a strainer and poster paint or clay paint; sticks and brushed made on natural materials; sand painting; new bamboo toothbrushes; bottle brushes; rubber mullets; potato masher and of course my favourite salad spinner. Have you tried chalk in a pepper cracker?

TEXTURE

To add texture, you can add salt to watercolours; sand to paints; soap flakes; wax crayons, leaves, rocks to add texture to painting process and art expression.