5 Easy Elementary Art Education Tips
Young children involved in elementary art education lessons are more interested in playing with the materials than creating a great final product.
Give students plenty of time to play and experiment with materials before using the supplies for a more structured art lesson.
Try the tips below to help your students feel like successful artists and to have bright colorful artwork to post on your bulletin boards.
1. 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 the picture book 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.
2. Teach elementary art education with centers...
- For students with 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.
- Avoid giving the students identical worksheets and calling it art.
- Provide seasonal imagination stations.
- Do you avoid setting up an art center because of the mess? Try teaching these 8 basic elementary art education skills early in the year for less cleanup. Read more...
3. Try each activity yourself
- Try each activity yourself before asking the children to complete them.
- 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.
4. 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.
- For instance, 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 thin markers.
5. Demonstrate
- Use correct vocabulary when demonstrating or helping children. Use terms such as pastel, dark, light, same, different and texture.
- Make 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.
