Art class for two-year-olds

I attended an art class for two-year-olds today with my granddaughter. It was the final catalyst for me to start a blog about the importance of art in any child's education. I loved Leah's openess to the process. She seemed to relish the opportunity to stick her hands in the finger paints and squish the color between her fingers. Applying it to the paper was secondary but eventually created the desired response. "I need green," she would say as she was smearing the purple onto the surface. "See Grammy. See the colors!" She allowed me to share her paper, encouraging me to add more color. I started to show her how I could use my hands to create different types of lines and shapes.
"Look Grammy! I made grass!" And indeed her lines moving upward did look like grass.

I have wanted to start this blog for months, ever since the economy started to collapse. I had concerns that with limited funds the arts programs in our schools, which have already been plundered by the increased load of tests, would begin to disappear from our curricula completely. You see, I grew up in the generation where arts programs in our schools began in junior high. Any formal art class in the elementary program was the result of an individual teacher's love ot the arts or a random coloring exercise which had very limited instruction. Yet I became an art teacher and an artist in spite of it all. I was one of the lucky ones, though, as I had an uncle who was an art teacher in another community. His house was an opportunity for me to explore art materials and the joy of creating.

Let me tell you a little about myself and perhaps that will help you understand my purpose in writing this blog. I was an elementary art teacher in Westbrook, Maine for 23 years. Though certified to teach art in kindergarten to high school levels, I chose to work with the youngest children because this is where the magic begins. Although I was labeled an art educator, I referred to myself as a literacy teacher. After all art is a language. It is the first written language of a child. That first line drawn with a crayon on a piece of paper is the child's way of telling you what he knows or understands about his world. Although it may look like a scribble to you, to the child it has meaning. When my first husband was studying at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., I was the Assistant to the Director at an inner-city daycare which was a pilot program for using the arts to teach math and reading skills to preschoolers. This gave me ample opportunity to observe how the arts help children learn. (More about this later)

Through this blog I hope to share not only my view of the arts but ways in which you can advocate for art education in your schools and why. I will share some of the lessons I used with young children and some of my own artwork. I also hope to hear from you. What do you want to know? What are your experiences with children in the arts? What do you want me to explore further? I hope to share books and articles with you that I have found helpful in my journey into the arts with children. You see this is my first blog. I am absolutely new to this idea. If my daughter Sarah (read choiceofpies.blogspot.com) hadn't encouraged me, I might never have thought of it at all.
Talk to you tomorrow.