Bird Art
Now that I feel like I’ve gotten the hang of Montessori inspired shelves, it’s time for me to work on providing more beautiful art at my toddler’s level. Honestly, I’m a little embarrassed that I’ve been doing this for weeks and have only just started thinking about this.
There are a lot of excellent artists who sell printable files of their work on Etsy, but since I’ve just spent more than I’d like to admit on fine motor activities, I’m going to focus on artwork that is available for free. All artwork in this blog post falls under a Creative Commons license, meaning that it is free for anyone to use and free for others to use and share (sometimes with, sometimes without attribution, but I will always link you to the original work).
Representational Artwork
Representational Artwork is anything that represents something from the natural world, but it may be more or less realistic. There is a place for realistic drawings and paintings as well as more abstract artwork in your prepared environment’s gallery. When I incorporate more abstract art, I tend to be drawn toward pieces that somehow highlight the essence of the thing that they represent. I feel like this helps my toddler to work on understanding the category of something, in this case, “bird,” as opposed to getting stuck on “no, all birds are owls and that’s just how it is.”
For this unit, I fell in love with this abstract watercolor of a robin. When it comes time to work on a gallery wall for the little guy’s bedroom, I will probably get this professionally printed as opposed to just printing it out on my little inkjet printer.
Abstract Robin
This stunning watercolor makes use of a bright pop of red and blue to focus the eye on the key color features of a robin.
Photography
In the early years, toddlers and young children crave reality. Fantasy and imagination are lovely, but take a moment to reflect on the amount of time your little one engages with a cartoonish drawing of a baby as opposed to a photograph of a baby. Odds are your little one is drawn to the photographs.
Including photographs in your prepared environment’s gallery is a powerful way to help your toddler connect to the natural world and begin to understand the essence of, in this case, “bird.” By presenting your little one with a variety of real images of birds, they will begin to understand that birds are a category and that creatures in that category share certain characteristics. Of course, it helps to highlight those characteristics in the materials that you present, but providing photographs helps to reinforce the concepts that you’re teaching.
Displaying Art
Art is meant to be appreciated, and if we want our toddlers to really take in the art that we’ve so lovingly obtained, we need to make sure that they can do just that. When displaying your art, ask yourself these questions:
Is this something I want my toddler to touch?
Does this placement enhance or clutter the prepared environment?
Can my toddler easily enjoy this piece? (tip: Get down on your kiddo’s level. Sit on the floor and look around. Does the art look nice from this vantage point?)
How does this piece connect to what we’re focusing on right now?
