Art and Creativity: December 2010

Art and Creativity

Art is important for children especially during their early development. Research shows that art activities develop brain capacity in early childhood; in other words, art is good brain food! Art engages children’s senses in open-ended play and develops cognitive, social-emotional and multi-sensory skills. As children progress into elementary school and beyond, art continues to provide opportunities for brain development, mastery, self esteem and creativity.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

X-Ray Hand Prints!

Watch how your hand prints seem to magically jump off the page, when you make x-ray hand prints using BioColor® "Scraper Art." X-Ray Scraper Art is an amazing process, take a moment to watch the video clip recorded live at the Discount School Supply NAEYC Math & Science Workshop.

I've also added a new "NAECY Handout" column at right which includes X-Ray Art as part of the NAEYC Math & Science Handout. Please consider printing out and sharing this handout at the next staff meeting! Teachers are always asking for new ideas that teach math and science through hands-on, sensory play. The handouts provided here are written with your "right-brain" in mind, they are easy to digest and rely heavily on diagrams and pictures. You'll find the same applies to Smart Art Ideas Activity Book and Smart Art 2: More Smart Ideas Activity Book.

These photos show 3-year olds making x-ray hand prints as part of teaching nutrition & building strong bodies. This activity provides a great opportunity to talk with children about the importance of milk, yogurt and other calcium rich foods in building good bone health. With that in mind, I added my favorite new

science product, the charming little skeleton man (18" Skeleton Model), which allowed me to reference an anatomically correct skeleton model as we began the activity by discussing our bones and hands. This incredibly inexpensive skeleton model is a must-have for science centers.

I hope these photos inspire you to try x-ray hand prints with even the youngest of children. By giving the children a chance to create a colorful paint border around their hand prints, we ended up with delightful paintings that combine art and science in the best of ways.