Art Appreciation

Yesterday afternoon, I found three children happily working with our art appreciation materials. Hooray!!

For Matthew, who can't yet be trusted with the art postcards in folders, I borrowed some pairs of tiles from our "Art Memo" game and put them in a small, square box, then found a two sectioned tray and a work mat. Voila! Art appreciation for toddlers. We looked through the tiles and I introduced the activity the other day. (I have realized that I need a third work rug now--there must be something in the pile of Turkish kilims in the storage loft.)

Yesterday, he worked independently. He put one copy of each painting on each side of the tray to make matches. In the end he had two little piles of (mostly) matched paintings. He is beginning to be obsessed with interested in order and wanted the edges of his piles to line up perfectly, but couldn't do so by himself. This led to some frustration. So I will need to think about that in choosing materials for him. The storage box was satisfying for him because the tiles fit very neatly inside, but in the tray, there was more room for tiles to slide around and become uneven. As his fine motor skills improve, this will be less of an issue, but I will need to pay attention to this with him for awhile.

He still enjoyed the activity, and he especially enjoyed working alongside his big brother and sister.