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We grow relationship with material when we have physical encounter with them. An educator can set up a situation with materials and children can explore them. In (Why art is important during the early years : 4 reasons ,2023) it is stated that Making art gives children an opportunity to explore, observe, interact with their environment, and figure out how things work. It also helps them learn and develop physically, emotionally and socially, making art an influential activity during the early years.

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In early childhood setting, I would choose one big room and eliminate everything else from it. I will then gather all the blocks in the centre and let children construct one large structure. With this leaning experience they can work with their peers to develop social skill, working around skills like balancing and creative thinking

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Blocks had helped me to build my imagination. Entanglements of the past, the future, and the now exist as children move in the classroom around the blocks, carrying with them blocks’ structured qualities. How do we see these complex time-spaces in between? We tend to link time to predictable, measurable, regulated movement or change. In early childhood education classrooms, time is perceived as linear, extensive (Kummen, 2010; PaciniKetchabaw, 2012, 2013; Rose & Whitty, 2010; Wien, 1996).

I had different thoughts while constructing with blocks. There was time when I wanted to cut them in order to fit into my creation, but I was confined to work according to blocks.
Wooden blocks are solid and  dense. They have a shape an they can not be grinned or crunched.

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To explore art and blocks, I thought of making a castle with blocks; little did I know that I had many non-uniform blocks. I continued to practice and despite different sizes and shaped I was able to make a beautiful looking house. It was not a grand castle, but I must say I was satisfied with what I made.

Thereafter, I thought of making a big building with the colourful blocks but unfortunately did not come up with anything as it shattered a second after it was completed.

The rules emerged in interaction: blocks are for building and making things; once you build something, no one else can take it apart; once something is constructed, it stays there, and only the builder—or those whom the builder chooses—can decide how to rearrange the blocks. We notice right away how static and stable blocks appearance. (Pacini-Ketchabaw, Kind & Kocher 2016)

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I will organise a hunt for finding loose parts with early leaners. After we collected natural resources, children would be advised to make faces with expressions on a cardboard surface. I as an educator will ask open ended questions and let their imagination boost. I will ask them to tell a story behind that face.

The art of constructing seems to give children both visual and tactile understanding of form. (Topal, CW & Gandini, L 1999)

This experience will provide opportunity for children to be in touch with nature. Materials enhance learning when they reflect what is natural and familiar, and also introduce novelty to provoke interest and more complex and increasingly abstract thinking. (EYLF p.16)

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Art and loose parts play open up a whole set of learning and play experiences for early learning centres.

Making an artwork with natural resources supports creativity. It allows us design, create, and arrange our work in two- or three-dimensional formations. It helps us to think with the material and adapt with its changes .

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I think nature is an art in itself. Everything we find around us is beautiful and artistic in one or the other way. For instance, Leaves, branches, flowers , clouds, trees are so unique and beautiful. I thought of collecting natural things like branches, leaves, stones and seashells. I wanted to arrange these materials so that it looks like a piece of art. Seashells reminded me of eyes and stones were telling me a different story. I made a face using shells, leaves and stones.

Therefore, I created this beautiful looking artwork from natural resources and I am very proud of it.

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There are so many fun ways to play with light and shadows. A child's imagination is way beyond than one can think of.
Exploration activities using light can stimulate critical thinking skills in children.

As an educator, I can teach children about shadows and light by shadow zoo parade

Children can showcase artistic tour of a zoo by picking their favourite animal figurines. I will put white coloured sheets on the ground. When they bring their animals close they can see the shadows of animals on the paper.

I will encourage students to tell stories behind their experiences.

Learning   activities   using light  is  an  innovation  in  early  childhood learning     activities     that     can     attract children's attention to explore, think creatively and critical thinking early on. (Mahshulah, Syaodih & Rachmawati 2020)

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Playing with light and dark creates magical experiences that both adults and children will enjoy. Light and darkness hold fascination and intrigue, as well as an element of risk and challenge and the opportunity for young children to experience what early years consultant Marion Dowling terms ‘gratuitous fear’. Experiences involving light and shadow enable children to appreciate the awe and wonder of the world around them and provide a rich environment in which to develop their natural curiosity. Such opportunities allow adults and children to engage in sustained shared thinking and to develop relationships where joys and fears are open for discussion.

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I was on a walk with my husband, I noticed our shadow which was bigger and elongated. It is very interesting to note that our shadows change throughout the day.

I came home and decided to do something fun with light and shadows. I turned the projector on and took my fluffy dinosaur in front of light to create shadows. It was such a fun experience, I started narrating story to my husband and he found this activity interesting. Then I reminisced my childhood days when we used to make shadows of bunnies and dogs with our hands

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To explore art and charcoal, I would like to make our own charcoal and setting up a station for children to make an artwork from that.
Making our own charcoal by lighting wood and roasting vegetables. Children will have an insight into the background of charcoal. They will be noticing how the charcoal migrates to her hands and arms.
We will grind some charcoal and leave some as it is. Children can use charcoal for hand panting or even face painting. I as an educator will always supervise and guide them. I would invite children to create patterns on my hands and arms as well. This will be shared and fun experience for us all.

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Charcoal is a thing: a stick of compressed burned wood. But it is also a continuum, a story, an event, a happening, a doing. We are interested in charcoal ness, the expression and experience of charcoal in the encounter: always in process, always becoming charcoal. This “isness” (Springgay, 2011, 2012) of a thing disrupts stillness. Charcoal is not just for drawing with.

There is a history behind charcoal as it comes from some event. I loved to create artwork with charcoal. Charcoal can shape shift, It can become powder and we can break it into small pieces

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I found two pieces of charcoal in my backyard. I thought about its origin, and it looked like it was from burnt wood.
When I held them, I thought that they were so different from each other.  I immediately observed that as I touched them, they touched me which means they transferred their colour to my hands.

Initially, I took a paper and tried to draw on a paper.  Then I thought, is charcoal meant only for drawing?

To explore art and charcoal, I thought of making designs on my hands and arms. I was very happy to see the patterns on my hands.

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To explore paint and art, I will place a biggest sheet of paper on the slide. I would provide different paints to children, and they can choose objects of their choice for example cars or balls dipped in paint to slide down. This will create different patterns of paint on the sheet. This will make is realise that art doesn’t have boundaries and we do not of have to sit down, concentrate and think about creating art. Children will be proud of the artwork that they created by having fun and learning about paint.

This experience would be an example that anything around us can be a tool of application for painting.

In art terms, the surface to which a pigment is applied is called the support. Artists take great measures to ensure that the ‘support’ that they have chosen is the correct one for the other materials that they wish to use. As educators, we need to create ‘Learning Environments’ that supply children with options to suit their developing styles and techniques. We need to ensure that our ‘settings are responsive to children’s interests and needs’ as identified in the Early Years Learning Framework on Practices— Learning Environments pg 15.

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During my exploration with paint I realised that paint moves, blends, spreads to create something we could never imagine. I wanted to assemble paint and observe what could happen.

The painting and art don’t have to make sense but it is the story from the artist which is important.

Paint as an assemblage: where each component in the & quote; human-nonhuman working (Pacini-Ketchabaw et al.,2016 p. 53) is related to the others.

The assembly of a painting brings together paint, painter and tools to create. For example,

there wouldn’t be a chance for recombination if the body were just a regulator of

assembled organs and sensory information. A body is ability to shape determines what it is

capable of (Pacini-Ketchabaw et al., 2016)

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I was watching a you tube video of someone painting a huge canvas by using pendulum motion of a bucket filled with paint and it created impeccable patterns on canvas making it a beautiful artwork.

I immediately started looking into the paint I had at home. I realised I only possessed three colours. Without any initial vision in my head, I started working with paint.

Initially, I tried to add three colours to two different papers. I added bit more red colour to another paper to explore the difference. Therefore, I realised that the mixture of paint made a very interesting pattern. I did not want to use brushes, so I thought of putting these sheets in the zip lock bag. I moved my fingers to create beautiful effects. When  I took a paper out, I wasn’t quite satisfied with my work. Hence, I took a plane  paper and stamped the coloured paper on it. I could see a beautiful figurine looking like a bird. I loved this piece of art.

Thereafter, I thought of stamping coloured leaf to create interesting patterns.

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To explore movement of paper with children, I will set up a station with the different sorts of paper, shredded paper, newspaper, old magazine paper, scrapped paper.

Children can have access to other resources like glue, colours, scissors, etc. Children can choose to make an artwork from the resources provided. This will help them to develop imagination and inspire critical thinking. They can express their emotions with the help of artwork that they will create. This activity can also encourage social skills as they work with their peers.

In this activity, I would want to encourage child agency and let them have the front seat rather than directing their minds into one direction.

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Paper flaps, floats, glides, hovers, soars, tears, rips, sways, flies, rolls, gathers, crumples, crimps, accepts, folds, bends, covers, swishes, flutters, pauses, bunches, scatters, yields. We breathe it in, we blow it out. We launch it, chew it, paste it, wear it, elevate it, wrap with it, read it, draw on it, flip it, collect it, paint it, propel it, drape it, colour it. We open, envelop, fill, empty, catch, (Pacini-Ketchabaw, Veronica, et al).
My imagination took turn so quickly as if paper was guiding me. Paper becomes known as receptive, reactive, pliant, absorbent, responsive to touch, to bending, folding, and crumpling. (Ketchabaw, Kind,Kochar,2016 ) I ended up making flowers instead of what I initially thought.
In early childhood setting children should be allowed to explore all aspects of paper. They can crunch it, wet it, fold it, fly it and do whatever their innovative minds guide them. The thought that paper is meant to be surface and could only be used for “specific” purposed should be scrapped.

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When I took to a white paper in my hands, I can observe that it is continuously in motion. I wonder what could be done with it and what could it become? It is said that early childhood material is closely connected to making. Let us see what can be created with this material.

I thought of cutting it into a square shape. I had no idea what I was going to create. I gave my mind a front seat and kept following the instructions from my brain. I reminisced about making a personality teller which we used to make in our childhood days. I started folding and it did not end very well the way I wanted it to be. Then I thought of making a fan by folding paper from both sides and ended up making a flower looking structure. This gave me an idea about making flowers.

The I poked a hole in one paper and trying to put it another paper through it. Throughout the process paper was leading my thoughts. I observed that paper can be folded, can be torn, weaved, makes sound, and could also work a fan with its movement.

We learn to move with the materials and attend to the ways we are moved in response. We learn that learning itself is movement.(Ketchabaw, Kind,Kochar,2016 ) I tried few different techniques and ended up with this not so perfect looking flowers. This made me realise paper tells so many different stories.

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The Arts are a part of educational curriculum of every country in the world. Art has been perceived as something that is beautiful and completed by many. However, Pelo used a word art in her book to describe a lively process of engagement with a range of materials and an engagement that is sensual and reflective, creative, and deliberate, relational, and expressive.(Pelo 2016). In my opinion artwork is an illustration of imagination, curiosity, expressing and experimenting and everyone is an artist. Art is organic and it can be used to communicate our understandings of things around us.

Mary Frank (2007) says art is “to give courage, use the heart, to risk and never be afraid of tenderness or the absurd. And to gather joy.” As you take up the language of art for yourself and offer it to the children in your care, may you find in it a source of courage, a willingness to risk the comfort of the familiar in exchange for the vitality of new terrain, and most of all, joy.(Pelo,2016)

Materials can evoke memories, narrate stories, invite actions, and communicate ideas.(Chapter 1) Experimentation is a complex social affective-political phenomenon that actively extends experience (Guattari, 1995).

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AN ENQUIRY INTO ART IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

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AN ENQUIRY INTO ART IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION