A wall in our kitchen is adorned with my two daughters’ artwork and I love it – even the particularly unflattering ‘portrait’ of me with a big purple face and spots.
I especially like it when I’m presented with a picture that’s seemingly of nothing – a few blobs of paint, some scribbles and scraps of material – and then my daughter explains in great detail what everything is. Those are the pieces that I treasure. They tell a story and have real meaning to my child.
The ones that I don’t hold any sentiment for are the creations that have obviously been directed by a staff member – the potato-print Hungry Caterpillar, tissue-paper Mother’s Day daffodils and the multitude of cards with handprint hearts, flowers or Christmas trees. Yawn! They don’t showcase my child’s personality or creativity, just a practitioner who has spent too much time on Pinterest.
It’s said ‘Every child is an artist’, so why do some practitioners try to dictate what is correct? Sadly, many of the parents follow suit, instruct their child what colour to use or where to stick something. Often a mum will be carefully finishing off their child’s ‘Under the sea’ picture long after their offspring has got bored and gone to play under the table. I feel like a maverick by letting my three-year-old stick, cut and draw what she likes. She may be pleased with the finished result but I know it won’t get singled out for praise at the end of the session.
A BLUE ELEPHANT AND SOME DINOSAURS
I find it hard to know how much input I should be giving when my children are given creative tasks to do at home – such as this Easter when both school and nursery held bonnet parades. Some parents got competitive and spent hours making wonderful creations for their children. One schoolboy’s papier-mâché Kinder Egg hat – obviously not made by him – was so big that a teacher had to walk behind him to hold it up!
My six-year-old carefully decorated her bonnet with flowers, rabbits, chicks and eggs that, she informed me, she’d arranged symmetrically around the brim. Her little sister insisted on gluing on a blue elephant and some dinosaurs that looked like they were about to devour the solitary fluffy chick that made its way onto her hat. They weren’t the best Easter bonnets in the parade but both children had enjoyed making them and grinned as they showed them off.
The staff at my daughter’s school seem more enlightened when it comes to creativity and allow the children to express themselves in their artwork rather than produce something identical to their peers. It’s acknowledged that the process of creating is more important than the finished product. We’re asked to donate materials for the children to use for junk modelling. It’s great that my daughter is encouraged to explore different materials.
As a parent, I don’t want to be given a piece of adult-guided artwork or a beautifully finished masterpiece identical to all the other children. I want my girls to be able to express themselves through their artwork, enjoy doing it and have the confidence to know that there’s not only one way to create a picture. I may be depicted with a purple, spotty face, but my daughter could well be the next Picasso.
A WORD OF ADVICE
Process, not product, is what matters in children’s learning and creativity, says Hayley Peacock, managing director of Little Barn Owls Nursery & Farm School
Children are naturally inquisitive, curious and capable of constructing their own learning. This is why over-directing arts and crafts activities only serves to starve the child of the learning opportunities and space for self-expression that allows them to know themselves as researchers of the world around them.
Recently, at Little Barn Owls, the wobbly papier-mâché ‘Lobster Transformer Eagle that goes on water, land and air’, with Sellotape eyes and feet made from balls of newspaper (a creation by Louis, aged four), took an entire morning to perfect.
One of our educators carefully captured the process in notes and photographs and attentively protected the space and time for Louis to bring his creation to life.
BEING INSPIRED
To the unaware, Louis’ Eagle could look like some crumpled wet newspaper with Sellotape hanging off. Five minutes’ discarded work, one could assume, yet in truth the concentration applied, the stories and characterisation developed and the knowledge gained from hours of making sticky, tricky eyes out of Sellotape and getting the balls of newspaper to fuse with Blu-Tack are inspiring.
To inspire such creativity, at Little Barn Owls we focus on providing a rich and inspiring range of materials that are presented with care so they look irresistible to touch, and children are drawn into researching them with their hands.
When showing the results of the process of working with materials to express the children’s ideas, we always document and share this process with parents because it’s here that real creativity and learning have taken place.
Little Barn Owls Nursery & Farm School in West Sussex was Nursery World Nursery of the Year in 2015. For more information, visit www.littlebarnowls.co.uk.