Have you ever thought about the difference between art and crafts? Believe it or not, it’s a hot topic in the early childhood world, primarily because one represents teaching children a process and the other represents a specific finished product.
It’s a common practice in early childhood centers to present children with all the parts and pieces they need to assemble a piece of “art”, typically one that goes along with whatever theme is being studied that week. When the task is completed, each child takes home a near-identical project. We call this “product art”.
As a parent, we love to ooh and ahh over the darling finished product and often hang pieces on the fridge to admire for days to come. But have you ever stepped back to wonder “What did my child learn from this project?”.
Sadly, the answer to that question, more often than not, is “Very little”. It shows that a child can follow a set of directions and allows them to practice some basic fine motor skills, but it lacks input from the child and is not true art.
When it comes to art in a preschool classroom, the process the child goes through to create their masterpiece is far more important than the end product–though seeing each unique piece they create is thrilling! “Process art” focuses on the experience of creating, with no samples to follow or expected outcomes. It is open-ended and the final result is entirely the child’s own.
The ability to create is innate in each of us. Seed to Sprout students are supported in this need to create by having access to a variety of mediums, tools, and surfaces to work with, which enables them to experiment and use their senses to make their creation. They engage their imaginations and tell wonderful stories about their finished pieces. What may look like a mess of combined colors to you has far deeper meaning to them, and the experience they have creating usually sparks the desire to create even more!
