Elementary Art Education
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Elementary Art Education Tips...
When teaching elementary art education lessons to young children keep in mind that most young children are more interested in playing with the materials than creating a great final product.
Teach mini elementary art education lessons throughout the day. Point out the elements of art when reading picture books. Show how the artists use colors, shapes and textures as well as how they use pattern in images. Read the story through and wait a day or two before using it as an art teaching tool.
Display a different famous artist poster every two weeks. During snack times direct the students attention to the art and talk about the artist and the painting.
Teach elementary art education with centers...
As many young students have very short interest levels for art activities, set up elementary art lessons with centers. Rotate the students so six or seven at a time are at the art table.
Have other art centers, such as a modeling clay table (plasticine or play dough) and an imagination station set up that require little or no supervision.
Limit material to achieve the effects you want...
When teaching elementary art education lessons limit the materials and tools you give the children to create the art you want.
Avoid giving the children black and brown paint if you want bright colorful artwork. If you want bold outlines on the pictures, give them big thick felts to draw with rather than pencils.
Help the children be successful
When teaching elementary art education to young children be sure to try each activity yourself before asking the children to do it. If you are right handed, try completing the project with your left hand and vice-versa. It will give you a better idea of what the process is going to be like for a young child with less small muscle development.
Creating leaf rubbings, for instance, seems to be a fairly simple autumn art lesson but the process is difficult for young children. To make such projects easier, place the leaves vein side up on the table, put a paper on top and tape the paper to the table to keep it from moving around.
Give the children big, chubby crayons with the paper torn off and encourage them to use the side of the crayon to rub over their leaves. 
Always demonstrate art activities and use correct vocabulary when describing the process and the tools.
Do some boo boo pictures to give the kids a heads up on what could go wrong. For example use only yellow in a leaf rubbing and then put it up on the wall. Ask the class, can we see it? Why not.. how could we make it show up more? Try another color and show again. Compare results.
Avoid giving the students identical worksheets and calling it art. Provide a seasonal imagination station.
Imagination station or art center tips
Some students have craft skills but an amazing amount of young children have not had an opportunity to play with elementary art education materials nor have learned how to use them. Teach the few basics below and have more success with the imagination station (art center).
White glue for gluing non paper items
Put white glue in empty small jam pots that gift jams come in and place small craft sticks in them. This makes it difficult for students to use more than a little dab of glue at a time. I call the white glue "little dot glue" and I teach the kids to use only little dots of white glue when creating in the "Imagination Center. Also teach them to keep the pot of glue very close to the area they are gluing so it does not drip across the table.
Glue sticks
Keep the old ones from the previous year and use them to teach the kids how to use glue sticks. When the children have stopped experimenting with how they twist up and down, put out the new gluesticks!
Painting with tempera blocks
Teach independence and make it easy for children to reach the sink, paper towels etc. Place painting stations near the sink and keep paper towel racks within easy reach. Teach the whole process over and over in September until the children have learned it.
- Get a paper from the pile
- Put name on the back of the paper before painting.
- Fill a shallow margarine tubs half full with water and carry it to the table
- Get a brush and check that it is clean.
- Put brush in water and then in tempera paint and say, "Go around and around and around", to get lots of paint on brush (other wise the will get dull paintings)
- Hang picture on the nearby drying rack
- Clean brush, water pot and table.
Easel painting
All young children need experiences painting with pots of bright paint, large paper and big brushes.
Teach students to use mixing brushes; put red paint on with red brush in the red paint; blue on with blue brush in the blue paint, and then use a mixing brush to mix the colors right on the paper. Keep the mixing brush in a paint pot that has a bit of water in it.
Scissors
Give the children stiff paper with straight lines on them to teach them basic cutting. As they improve, put curving lines on the paper and finally zigzag lines. Some younger children will cut stiff paper for quite a long time. As they master basic cutting, give them regular paper to cut. Teach scissor safety.
Experiment with color
Provide only yellow and blue paint for a few days. Let the students play.
Then put out only red and blue paint for the next couple of days. Other days offer only white and red. Each day have some children show their pictures and talk about the colors they used and new colors that they created.
Extend art vocabulary
Use correct vocabulary when demonstrating or helping children. Use terms such as pastel, dark, light, same, different and texture.
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