Preschool art appreciation is not always about the great artists and famous artworks. Sometimes it is about personal expression and showing the world a child’s individual potential, The following suggestions are meant to illustrate how children making art relates to art appreciation and sets the stage for more in-depth art studies in the future.
Play Dough Sculpting
Not only is children’s clay great for learning to mold things into spatial dimensions and identifiable shapes, it is also close enough to a professional’s modeling clay to give children some insight into what goes into making art.
Fingerpainting
Fingerpainting is fun and educational for preschool children. As they draw out their pictures, children are also discovering the texture of paints and surfaces, learning how to mix colors, and observing how different colors can be used to contrast or complement each other.
Houses, Skies, Cars, and People
Giving a child some paper and crayons will turn them into professional preschool artists. You can give them suggestions about the type of artwork they could make, or simply leave them to fill in the blank page with their own imaginations. As a class, you can focus on familiar objects and places, so the children have a reference to work from.
What It Means To Me
This exercise is probably the closest of the list to the art appreciation classes in your child’s future. Start with famous artworks and let the children tell you how the piece affects them. After they get the idea of what is expected in the activity, you can even let children submit their own artwork for general class discussions.
The most important aspect of art appreciation is getting the preschool children involved in art in all of its beauty. Once they have discovered the power of art as a communication medium you can introduce them to the subtleties of technique and imagination.
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