Using visual arts in early childhood education is a way to provide children with learning that promotes the integration of aspects essential to their development, such as imagination, perception, cognition, sensitivity, intuition, etc.
Visual arts activities encourage and enhance skills in dealing with shapes, colors, images, gestures, sounds and other expressions.
The visual arts are present in children’s everyday life from a very early age. It is at school that they are introduced in order to develop important characteristics. The simple act of scribbling, drawing or painting stimulates the sensitivity, imagination, perception, intuition and cognition of the little ones.
Educators, assistants, pedagogical coordinators, psycho-pedagogues and other professionals who work with teaching and child development can qualify on the subject in online courses. They are perfect for ensuring more recognition in the market and better results with the classes and/or services provided.
In this article we will explain more about this agenda and show how distance learning courses can be of great value to students, professionals and others interested.
Visual arts objectives for early childhood education
Children are already born in the midst of technology and get used to electronic toys from an early age. When they enter school, they encounter classes outside this context, with greater playfulness and social interaction, such as storytelling, painting activity, drawing, collages, creation with modeling clay, among many others.
The programmatic content of the kindergarten educators, who teach children from 0 to 5 years old, should be full of classes that mix new learning with play.
It is possible to insert visual arts into children’s education during their first months, following, of course, the pedagogy indicated for each age group. The more playful the work done in class, the better the positive return for both children and parents.
It is worth knowing that teaching arts can bring benefits not only for their learning in its various forms, but also for physical and psychological development, and can improve the lives of the little ones at home, in family interaction and in routine activities, etc.
Related courses that might interest you:
From zero to three years
Art as well as music and other languages allow children from a very young age to represent what they are, feel or think.
The teachers of early childhood education have the mission to present to babies and children up to 3 years old different instruments to start the artistic life. When it comes to visual arts, there is the so-called plastic language, which refers to the techniques of modeling, collage, drawing and children’s painting.
The greater the range of arts activities for early childhood education, the more creative freedom children will have, as well as autonomy, personality development, motor skills, among other important characteristics for the formation of the human being.
In this age group, the school and teacher should work with the following objectives:
- To show the world in which they live with the help of different materials and objects, exploring possibilities of use and mixing textures and colors.
- To enlarge the children’s forms of expression and communication by providing graphic and plastic materials on various surfaces – classes that go far beyond pencil and paper.
- To present the transformations caused by the mixing of materials and colors, and how each one can be used with a different set of gestures.
- Children should recognize paintings, drawings and other graphic objects created by them and their peers. Experience the artistic production of the idea until the final form.
- Provide situations involving appreciation of artistic objects in order to awaken artistic sensibility in children, as well as creativity, aesthetic sense and clear, historical knowledge.
- To show that they can express their ideas and feelings from images made by them or already existing, such as photographs and illustrations.
Four and five years old
By the time children reach 4 years of age, they begin to show the main points of their personality and abilities of preference.
It is at this age that creativity and fantasy begin to walk together, they begin to have their “imaginary friends” and tell stories of their dreams or desires. As a consequence, they use the various forms of art to express everything they are living, thinking and creating.
As a way to help them in this phase, educators must be attentive to stimuli and multidisciplinarity, important to prepare them for elementary school. See the main goals of the school and teachers for this age group:
- To encourage their interest in their own productions, those of their colleagues and also in the various existing artistic works, whether regional, national or international, with a view to broadening their critical sense and knowledge of world culture.
- To produce artistic works using several languages, such as drawing, modeling, cutting, collage, children’s painting, developing affection and care with the whole creation process and respect for the final result.
- To explore activities that use various artistic languages, carrying out the multidisciplinary content of this stage. The mixture of painting, drawing, photography, with visuals with theater, dance, and other expressions, shows the students that this integration is possible and encourages quick thinking.
- Apply the content in different environments of the classroom to show that art can be present everywhere, following the established conducts.
- To provide experiences that educate through art, using the references that children bring from their experience inside and outside the school environment.
In addition to these, there are many other goals to be achieved by including visual arts in early childhood education.
If you are a student or professional in the field, you can learn more about the principles of this stage of teaching, its characteristics and the best methodologies in certified online courses. Consider taking them to excel in the job market.
Main visual arts activities for early childhood education
When they arrive at kindergarten, children will be able to develop something inherent to the human being: expression through shapes and drawings. “Going to school or not, it’s natural for a child to draw, because drawing already existed before the creation of the school.
But it is in this environment that they will receive the incentive to create from their imagination and didactic references, besides the necessary support to make it understood by themselves, teachers and parents.
It is the role of educators to offer resources to children in art education classes, such as diverse materials and teachings. In the Online Visual Arts Course for Early Childhood Education you can find several suggestions for introducing this discipline in the classroom.
There are the usual expressions that should be included in this program, for example, those of coloring ready-made drawings, but there are others that further instigate their capacity and provide more comprehensive learning.
We have selected art activities for early childhood education that can be part of your program content.
Free painting
Childish apintura can be presented to children from a very early age. Classes can mix finger painting, with gouache and watercolor, which will bring a greater sensorial perception, helping them to understand the textures, the space to be painted, among others.
In addition, it is possible to provide materials for painting activities, such as brushes, sponges and much more. With them, children will be able to use their creativity even more and obtain different results.
It is worth knowing that free painting means that the painting to be done should be thought exclusively by the child, without having a method established by the teacher or some other reference image.
The interesting thing is to show how they can do this, teaching ways of painting and materials that can be used, for example. The knowledge acquired in EAD courses such as painting techniques can qualify you so that your classes become more complete.
Artist reference
Besides free painting, there are activities that are performed from other works of art. In this context, the educator should explain to the room about one or more artists, such as painters and sculptors. It is necessary to suggest a discussion about their works in a very relaxed way, in order to discover what the students’ perceptions, opinions and feelings about them are.
A tip is to propose a re-reading of famous works, contextualizing them for today or according to the lifestyle of each child. It is a way to introduce classical content and stimulate the imagination at the same time.
Here at Educamund we also have distance learning courses that train you on artistic ramifications of Brazil and the world. The online Art History course, for example, can help a lot in teaching about famous artists and their techniques.
Painting of walls and/or sidewalks
As we mentioned earlier, it is essential for the early childhood education teacher to reflect on the possibility of showing a world outside the classroom to children.
Explore the garden, the courtyard, the sidewalk in front of the school, or promote walks that involve art with the children. A nice idea is to choose a wall or sidewalk for the children to work on collectively painting them.
Art in games
Another very nice activity that can involve children of all ages is games. They can be created by the teacher together with his students, and always with the mission of providing a collective activity, with partnership and healthy competitiveness – teaching to lose and to win.
Art can participate in this fun class by asking students to paint, draw, collect and cut the necessary items.
Cutting and gluing
Children of 4 and 5 years old can already use scissors without tips to perform cutting and collage activities, which are very common in children’s education and is also a way of expressing themselves artistically. Children under the age of 3 should only use glue.
The clippings should be made by the teacher and assistants. Anyone who wants to bet on this type of activity in class can take the opportunity to teach about mosaics.
Self-portrait
The concept of self-portrait is very old. It goes back to the beginnings of human history, with the records that men made about themselves on the walls. Then it appears with much more strength and complexity in the Renaissance, when most artists engaged in making a painting of their own bust.
By encouraging this kind of art, the teacher will teach the student what a self-portrait is and how artists have portrayed themselves over time. He should also explain that it is a necessary expression to know oneself from physical and sentimental points of view.