Isn’t it amazing to see the sparks fly and the little cogs in young students’ brains ignite when they start learning a new subject!? Whether it’s language, science, or the coming of the universe, introducing new subjects to early childhood students can be super exciting! Art is no different—in fact, I think it’s even more exciting! Montessori early childhood art is an essential part of a child’s intellectual and motor skills development and it should be included in early childhood students’ educations!
But for some reason, many people—including teachers—believe that young kids can’t learn art. Or that if they introduce art to early childhood students, it’s going to lead to a huge mess.
But I’m here to tell you that’s not the case!
Toddlers and early childhood students CAN learn art! You just have to know HOW exactly to teach them.
After years and years of working with and teaching children about art, I’ve discovered the way they naturally learn and comprehend the subject. It’s led me to develop my very own teaching method that engages and excites early childhood students and introduces them to art in a way that makes sense to their developing brains. It’s all in my new book, Early Childhood Art: Visual Arts Teaching Guide!
Being able to present art concepts and lessons in a way early childhood students can understand is completely key in helping them understand the different aspects of this important subject. Early Childhood Art: Visual Arts Teaching Guide gives you the foundation for teaching art and presenting successful art activities in early childhood classrooms.
Visual Arts Teaching Guide for 13 Months – 6 Years Old
This book includes: ✅ My proprietary art teaching method ✅ The proper and complete list of art materials ✅ A guide for staging and setting up a successful art environment ✅ Tips and art lesson ideas for early childhood ✅ A convenient three-ring binder presentation
This Montessori art guide is the accumulation of more than 20 years of experience in teaching visual art to early childhood students all over the world. I’ve taught thousands of children how to paint, draw, sculpt, craft, and mix colors, all while observing how they engage in art. My success is led by my observations and real-life practice of how children in early childhood cognitively and sensorially process different art matters.
I’ve seen Montessori teachers stress out and lose confidence when it comes to art because they have no previous experience in the subject. I know how intimidating it can be to jump into something so unknown. When we surround ourselves with fine works of art, we set extremely high expectations, but the truth is, art should be fun! What’s more, early childhood students should be encouraged to explore and experiment, not be held to strict standards. Art is all about experimentation and exploring, so you don’t need to be an artist to participate or even teach it!
Download a FREE Mini Course: Child Art Phase Development
Understanding how early childhood students comprehend and learn art is the first step. If you would like to learn more how to nurture children in the visual arts, register for my FREE mini digital course, Phases of Art Development Video.
The Phases of Art Development is a quick digital course that explains how art making can help students develop their creativity, fine-motor skills, and focus. More importantly, I share what types of projects students at every age are capable of completing safely, and without making a mess.
No part of this blog may be used or be reproduced in any manner whatsoever including reproducing, publishing, performing, and making any adaptions of the work – including translation into another foreignlanguage without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Nature of Art® Publishing P.O. Box 443 Solana Beach, California 92075.
This is my favorite blog to write each year because it gives me a chance to pause, count my blessings, and give thanks for all the things I’m most grateful for in 2019.
As teachers, we have a responsibility for raising and teaching our students the meaning of gratitude, including being mindful of world peace. And I know at times it can be truly difficult since there’s so many negative things going on across the globe. But, as Mark Frost put it, “there is no light without darkness;” that means, in spite of the darkness, there is still so much to be thankful for!
So this season, pause with me. In fact, I’d encourage you to grab a piece of paper or notebook and jot down a few of the things you’re grateful for this year. As for me…
I’m grateful for so much this year—my children, my work, my dearest friends (coaching me daily), my mother’s recovery from a heart surgery, traveling and meeting beautiful friendly people in different parts of the world—but I have to say, this year, my gratitude focus is on being a teacher and being able to share my passions with all my young students.
I’m also grateful for and want to acknowledge the amazing teachers that get up every day to teach young minds. I work with children almost every week, but it’s been a while since I’ve had to teach a class daily like most of you do.
When I am teaching a class, one of my favorite things is listening to my art students share stories of things they’ve learned in their classrooms and all the fun they’ve had at school; you might not realize it in your day-to-day, but you are truly appreciated!
This year, I’ve also heard some very tragic stories from teachers I work with, about young students dying and having to help their whole classroom cope with such loss, or learning some students only get to eat at school and realizing those children are going home to poverty or broken homes every night. I’ve also talked to so many teachers that are battling it out with students who have behavioral problems—even some physical altercations or violent outbursts—and if you’re experiencing anything like that, my heart goes out to you!
I am very grateful for all you beautiful teachers who head into class every morning. Our children need their teachers!
A teacher recently told me that he had a student track him down on Facebook this year to thank him for his support and encouragement in the classroom. It had been more than 25 years since the student was in his class, but he clearly had left a great impact on this young person’s life.
I can relate to this story, and I’m sure if you’re a teacher, you can too. I remember my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Martinez. She gave me the desire to be adventurous and want to travel and she supported my creative spirit.
So while you are off and out of the classroom this week, spending time with your loved ones, just know that I—and so many others—are grateful for all you do.
Thank you for touching the lives of your students, and thank you for showing up here and sharing my art teaching adventures with me!
Wishing you and your family a very warm, happy holiday in this season of Thanksgiving!
The Phases of Art Development is a quick digital course that explains how art making can help students develop their creativity, fine-motor skills, and focus. More importantly, I share what types of projects students at every age are capable of completing safely, and without making a mess.
Visual Arts Teaching Guide for 13 Months – 6 Years Old
This book includes: ✅ My proprietary art teaching method ✅ The proper and complete list of art materials ✅ A guide for staging and setting up a successful art environment ✅ Tips and art lesson ideas for early childhood ✅ A convenient three-ring binder presentation
No part of this blog may be used or be reproduced in any manner whatsoever including reproducing, publishing, performing, and making any adaptions of the work – including translation into another foreignlanguage without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Nature of Art® Publishing P.O. Box 443 Solana Beach, California 92075.
Color appears in all areas of art study and is a very significant aspect of art literacy. Artists who don’t understand the concepts of color theory and color mixing struggle in painting and digital design as they advance through their art education and practice. That’s why it’s important as Montessori teachers to introduce color theory concepts to students at a young age—and that’s why I’ve created this Montessori art curriculum to make teaching it in your classroom so much easier.
Kids Color Theory Practice & Process Curriculum is an introduction to the color theory domain. It lays the foundation for basic contemporary color concepts that lead to more advanced art skills in painting, drawing, and crafting. It gives students everything they need to be successful in the study of art.
I’ve designed and organized this curriculum into 37 Master Color Mixing Lessons. Each one is a small, digestible part of the color theory domain and builds onto the previous, helping students develop new skills in sequential order. Every lesson is curated as a guided introduction, with supporting extension activities for students to explore and discover in process-based, hands-on, real-time experiences.
Each lesson includes an overview of what you’ll be teaching. You’ll also get a materials list, and instructions for presenting and demonstrating the concepts and techniques addressed in the lesson. The direct aim and indirect aim of each lesson is also laid out.
You can use Kids Color Theory Practice & Process Curriculum to create a full year of content, with weekly lessons covering one sequence at a time or you can do six lessons throughout the year along with other art study curriculum. If students have never had a color theory lesson, they should start from the very first lesson of this curriculum.
This curriculum is the accumulation of more than 20 years of experience in teaching art to early childhood and elementary students all over the world. I’ve taught students of all ages how to paint, draw, sculpt, craft, and yes, mix colors.
My years of working with children led me to discover exactly how they naturally learn and comprehend art. My success is led by my observations and real-life practice of how children cognitively and sensorially process different art matters.
My art method has been taught to thousands of children internationally, and now I’m bringing the best of my knowledge and experience into the Montessori classrooms with this brand new curriculum.
I’ve seen Montessori teachers stress out and lose confidence as they try to put together art lessons and activities for their students. I understand how intimidating it can be to put together curriculum for a subject when you have no background in it. But art is such a crucial part of a child’s intellectual and motor skills development, it’s something that needs to be included in their education! And truthfully, art is all about experimentation and exploring, so you don’t need to be an artist to participate or even teach it! As long as you have a guide—like Kids Color Theory Practice & Process—to keep you on track as far as what skills to teach your students, you’ll be able to bring art into your classroom without any stress!
Where to Start: What Other Teachers & Parents Are Saying About This Art Curriculum
“My 3 kids are really enjoying a once a week art class using this color theory curriculum. It so easy to set them up with paint, paper, brushes, and examples to inspire their imagination. Then let them do their thing and be little artists. Even with having multiple ages at 3, 6 and 11, the lessons are a breeze and work for all of them. It’s fun to see what they will come up with each time and then put them in a portfolio as a collection. Thanks Spramani for an art program that works!”
Katrina Marie Thibodeau, New York Homeschool Mom of four children
One Step Further: Download a FREE Color Mixing Lesson
In Kids Color Theory Practice & Process Curriculum, every lesson includes a list of the materials and the steps your students will need to complete it. You don’t need complicated color mixing lessons or principles for kids to explore and experience the color theory domain.
I wanted to share this Color Theory Mixing Lesson with you to help get you started with teaching your students. While I strongly believe you need an entire curriculum to teach your students and help them build the proper color theory skills, you’ve got to start somewhere. And allowing them to create and explore within this lesson will open their eyes and spark their creativity. To download the Color Theory Mixing Lesson, click here.
A Short Cut Just for You – Buy Curriculum Now!
You want an easy, fool-proof, step-by-step way to teach your students exactly what they need to know. Well, here it is; no more guesswork. I created this curriculum for Montessori teachers just like you!
Kids Color Theory Practice & Process Curriculum has dozens and dozens of color theory lessons for early childhood, lower elementary, and upper elementary Montessori students. The lessons build on each other to provide students with the knowledge they need to understand color theory and start the artistic process. Plus, every lesson is laid out, step-by-step, so all you have to do is read up and follow the instructions! To purchase Color Theory Curriculum for your classroom, click here.
No part of this blog may be used or be reproduced in any manner whatsoever including reproducing, publishing, performing, and making any adaptions of the work – including translation into another foreignlanguage without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Nature of Art® Publishing P.O. Box 443 Solana Beach, California 92075.
Late last month, I loaded onto a plane from LAX, and more than 24 hours later, I arrived in beautiful Ubud, Bali to host an art studio at the 2019 Family Adventure Summit. I was so excited to study art in this foreign culture and help some of the 400+ attendees create beautiful artworks. Teaching art in Bali was, hands down, the most beautiful art trip I’ve taken this year, but that doesn’t mean everything went exactly as planned. In fact, the whole art studio experience could have been a complete disaster if I hadn’t thought on my feet and set some time aside before take off for some serious Montessori art lesson planning. Here’s how my trip went and how you can learn from my mistakes.
Our accommodations were the most luxurious museum-hotel hybrid where the check-in desk was outside. The grounds and gardens were all designed as outdoor art, with stairs, statues, water features, and plants planned out to provide a balance between man and environment. I was truly stunned at what a beautiful (albeit humid) paradise it was!
The first few days I got to explore found a traditional Batik class taught by a local artist. I have to say, this class was one of the highlights of my trip! Seeing and experiencing different painting methods and tools is one of my travel passions. I’m always on the hunt to bring back methods to my young and adult art students, and Bali is an artist’s paradise!
I also learned how friendly the Balinese people are and how wonderful their culture is. Every day, I got to experience the daily Canang sari offerings, which are prayers of peace, for balance and gratitude to different gods of Balinese Hinduism. The frangipani flowers were also everywhere, and the petals falling from the trees wherever I walked was a reminder of nature’s beauty. And the Southeast Asian sunsets could have inspired a million paintings!
While teaching on this trip, I, of course, had the opportunity to teach my young students new and different art techniques. Before my trip I did some investigating and found out that Ubud had a huge tourist attraction—a natural habitat that was home to more than 1000 rescued monkeys! I decided to work this into my Montessori art lesson planning, and created a clay activity where they would sculpt a monkey, that they could then take home with them as a souvenir.
I traveled with white air-dry clay that usually takes about 24 hours to harden; I planned two days for the activity—that should have given my students enough time to sculpt their little monkey, allow it to harden, and then paint it. I’ve taught projects like this hundreds of times and nothing has ever gone wrong…except this time!
The day of my clay workshop I showed my students basic clay forming methods, and gave each of them a portion of clay so they could begin working on their monkeys. About five minutes into the lesson, I realized that everyone’s clay was drying out fast and was quickly becoming unworkable. Hands started popping up for my help, and I realized the humidity was so high that it was drying the clay out instantly. I started to panic while helping everyone, plus I was sweating and super hot—I wasn’t used to that kind of humidity myself!
After 20 minutes of trying to remedy the situation, I decided to collect all 30 monkeys (or attempts at monkeys) that all looked the same, and placed them in plastic bins. I tried to label each project to remember whose was whose, and told the students we would finish the monkeys the next day.
After all the kids left for the day I had the brilliant idea of spraying their monkeys with water to try and rehydrate the clay, which is a sculpture trick that has usually worked a thousand times before…but again, not this time!
The next day after everyone took their seats, eager to work on their cute little monkeys, and as I passed them out to smiling faces I started hearing the kids say, “gooey” and “gross.” The water I sprayed the night before turned the clay into a gooey dough that stuck to everyone’s hands. I had ruined everyone’s projects! Some kids started crying because out of the 30 monkeys, only four survived, allowing their child to finish with their creation. I had 26 upset kids trying to scrape gooey clay off their hands and all running towards the bathroom; it was total chaos!
Why I’m sharing my art disaster?
I want you to know how to work through difficult lessons. Honestly art making is trial and error; it’s 90 percent mistakes. Artists are rarely satisfied with their work, and as an artist and art teacher, I can truly say that art making is all about experimenting. Art making builds resilience!
That’s why I always teach that the process is what’s important, not the product or outcome. I think teaching in the heat to loud kids outdoors, plus hours and hours of traveling got the best of me and I forgot my own golden rule!
I was able to avoid complete disaster by gathering the kids and fessing up to my mistake. I explained how art making is trial and error, and mistakes happen frequently for artists. I invited everyone to watch me try to sculpt a monkey step-by-step so they could see me struggle on my own through the process right in front of them. I changed my technique a few times and reminded them that there’s more than one way to do things. In the end, I created something that kind of looked like a monkey, everyone calmed down. They were inspired to go back to their gooey clay and get back to work—they even shared bits of workable clay with each other and some kids started creating other things, like bananas and trees.
Where to Start: Focus on Isolated Skills
So, where did I go wrong in all of this? First off, I gave my students perfect images of monkeys as inspiration for their work. This means I built up an expectation that they themselves would be creating and taking home an artwork representation of a perfect monkey. I should have encouraged the group to explore with the clay and brainstorm their own ideas of what a monkey looks like. Then we could have looked at the art experience as practice and a way to learn basic art skills.
Art lessons should focus on a series of isolated skills—if they result in beautiful monkeys, then that’s just a bonus! When you teach children art lessons, you need to put emphasis on the process: brainstorming, innovating, creating, and problem solving. Try to stay away from giving kids the perfect image in their head and try to focus on isolated building skills and have them reflect on the experience.
One Step Further: Download My Montessori Art Lesson Planning Guide
The only way I was able to recover those art lessons gone wrong, was because I had a solid foundation for art lesson planning. It’s taken me years to perfect it—and clearly, not everything goes “perfect”—and I’ve gotten it down to a simple three-step process. This Montessori art lesson planning guide will help you too, to easily create art experiences for your students. Download it, keep it in your desk or folder, and refer to it whenever you’re mapping out your curriculum or planning your next art activities. (Just remember, even with the best laid plans, sometimes you have to breathe and just go with the flow!)
Visual Arts Teaching Guide for 13 Months – 6 Years Old
This book includes: ✅ My proprietary art teaching method ✅ The proper and complete list of art materials ✅ A guide for staging and setting up a successful art environment ✅ Tips and art lesson ideas for early childhood ✅ A convenient three-ring binder presentation
No part of this blog may be used or be reproduced in any manner whatsoever including reproducing, publishing, performing, and making any adaptions of the work – including translation into another foreignlanguage without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Nature of Art® Publishing P.O. Box 443 Solana Beach, California 92075.
Not only is it important to teach young children how to create art, but it’s just as important to teach them how to use art language. Some people are surprised to learn that art has its very own language—the Elements of Principles of Design—that is used to describe art. Like many new subjects, it can be complicated to teach to young students, but I promise, there is a way to use Montessori early childhood art language in your classroom!
Art language has developed gradually over the history of mankind—more than 30 thousand years ago! Learning this abstract language can take a while to fully grasp, even for upper elementary students and adults—but the great news is that the original, abstract art language has been simplified over the last few centuries, so it’s much easier to use and understand.
Now, do I feel that early childhood students should start learning complex art terms when they’re just learning to talk and write? I don’t believe students, especially early childhood students, need to be taught art language in an academic sense, but I do recommend you to start introducing them to simple, easy-to-understand art terms through normal discussions. Montessori early childhood art language will become much easier to understand the more students are exposed to it, and for students in upper elementary, it can be weaved into art lessons and presentations.
Learning art language is the traditional way to study visual arts. The Elements and Principles of Design are what we study in the arts and what we use to describe visual dimensions in artworks. By teaching students Elements and Principles of Design terms, you’re helping them learn to communicate what they are creating, how they’re going through the artistic process, and what they see and admire in their and other artworks.
Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography | aquarium.ucsd.edu
If you’re new to art language, practice using simple art terms yourself. Look at your favorite artworks and try to describe what you see in them. Bold warm colors? Jagged gray lines, flower shapes? I went to fine art school, and trust me, you don’t have to to become an artist to be able to use artful terms. You’re more than capable of teaching your students the basics! And the more comfortable you are with using art language, the more comfortable your students will become with it too.
Where to Start: Simple Terms for Montessori Early Childhood Art Language
Learning the Elements and Principles of Design helps us communicate in art language. There are many words in the art vocabulary that can be learned and used, but you should start with the very basic terms—especially with younger students.
Early childhood students are seeing and experiencing everything for the first time; they don’t quite understand how visual art fits into their little world yet—but they can still be introduced to art language! As they explore and start to really get to know what art is, using art language with your young students will become easier. More than likely, their inquisitive little minds will start making connections (like, “if I use this color paint, this paint brush, it’ll come out like this”), and they’ll probably start asking questions (such as, “what color is this?” or “why did this do this?”).
When you’re first introducing Montessori art language to your students, keep things basic and simple. Start by describing what you see when you’re looking at art or what’s going on as you make art.
One of the easiest ways to start using art language is to point out colors while reading to your students, try:
“The leaf is all green, would you like to color something green today like this leaf?”
“Let’s cut out some shapes, like circles and squares, with scissors.”
“Let’s make some squiggly lines and straight lines. How many different colored lines can we do?”
One Step Further: Download My Beginner Elements & Principles of Design Cheat Sheet
You might not realize it, but you’re probably already using some of the Elements and Principles of Design vocabulary words already! Some words, such as “color,” “line,” and “texture” are simple enough to use and understand when talking about art, but there are many other terms I’d encourage you to use too.
Download my Beginner Elements and Principle of Design Cheat Sheet for a list of Montessori early childhood art language terms. I’ve included definitions for each term as well, so you’ll feel more confident using them, knowing you’re using them correctly. In truth, these art language terms can be used in all Montessori classrooms, no matter how old your students are!
Visual Arts Teaching Guide for 13 Months – 6 Years Old
This book includes: ✅ My proprietary art teaching method ✅ The proper and complete list of art materials ✅ A guide for staging and setting up a successful art environment ✅ Tips and art lesson ideas for early childhood ✅ A convenient three-ring binder presentation
No part of this blog may be used or be reproduced in any manner whatsoever including reproducing, publishing, performing, and making any adaptions of the work – including translation into another foreignlanguage without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Nature of Art® Publishing P.O. Box 443 Solana Beach, California 92075.
If you don’t come from an art background or haven’t had any art training, then introducing art lessons to your students might feel like unfamiliar territory. What makes it worse, is that there are no real guidelines or proper art literacy standards available in traditional Montessori training. I know how frustrating it can be to take something so foreign and bring it into your classroom with confidence. The secret is using Montessori concepts to merge the two together. Here’s how to create your own, effective Montessori art direct and indirect aims.
I’ve worked with Montessori teachers and in Montessori classrooms all over the world, and I also have a background in all types of visual art. It took years of observation and teaching art directly to students, but I’ve figured out a way for you—even if you have no art experience—to support art literacy in your Montessori classroom.
I’m sure you know how important it is to support students in their own self discovery using their hands and senses within the classroom environment. This exploration process is similar to how artists discover and create with their own hands too. Our hands are the neural connection that feeds our brain information; they’re also the way we develop and hone our fine-motor skills.
So, as a Montessori teacher, how can you support students in the artistic process and inspire them to think creatively? Start with understanding how direct and indirect aims relate to artistic development and progression.
For an artist to create, they must move through the artistic process, which is the four actions an artist experiences while creating and producing artworks. It starts with self discovery through their hands, then designing with their imaginations, then constructing with materials, and finally, reflecting about their process through expression by using art language, creative writing, or community sharing.
Where to Start: Using Montessori Art Direct and Indirect Aims
So let’s compare these actions to Montessori’s method of direct and indirect aims to teaching as a guide.
Art Lesson: Direct Aims
In an artistic environment, your Montessori art direct aim can be to prepare the work space, explore different artist materials, and manage time for art creation—while following art standards. You can also demonstrate and isolate techniques that promote independent exploration, engagement, and how to work in a respectful, artful way within the classroom.
The Artistic Process: Indirect Aims
Indirect aims are accomplished by stepping back and allowing the artistic process’s four actions to unfold. Self discovery by sensory tactile spatial exploration with the eyes, hands and mind; improvisation and creative selection of the elements and principles of design; the hands-on construction of ideas; and finally, the opportunity to reflect on the process verbally or through writing. Indirect aims unfold during the artistic process. Creativity is the result of the process.
I talk to so many adults and teachers who think art is just a frivolous subject, an activity to give kids to do to keep them quiet for an hour or so. Some might even know the value of art in that it encourages kids to think creatively and and work through complex emotions. Art benefits both their mental health and their fine motor skills too, but did you know art making stimulates kids’ brain development!? It goes beyond creative expression (although that’s important too) and actually has lasting positive effects on kids’ brains!
You may think that the art projects and lessons you’ve been doing in your Montessori classroom is just busy work—filling time and keeping kids busy, but there is a lot of behind-the-scenes action going on during each art activity that fuels students’ brain development. We know that when a child touches an object, information is sent through their sensory nerves to their brains. Visual art learning often happens through direct sensory interactions which stimulates learning in different ways than visual and audio learning.
These sensory experiences can help young students learn more, better understand different ideas and concepts, and art making stimulates kids’ brain development. Here are a few areas where art directly benefits kids’ brain development.
Gross Fine-Motor Skills
Visual arts provides kids with the opportunity to use their hands on a regular basis—holding pencils, pinching and sculpting clay, cutting with scissors, and making fluid brushstrokes all help kids build their hand muscles and strengthen their hand-eye coordination as well as fine motor movements.
Connection to Vocabulary and Communication
Visual arts help kids make connections across different subjects and ideas to be able to better understand things. So when kids explore different art activities, they’re actually learning how to communicate what they see in their artworks and how to describe the artistic process they use to create. In doing this, they unknowingly start making observations such as, “I see color,” “I see pink,” “I see a squiggly line,” “I see zigzags.” When they communicate those observations to you or each other, they begin to develop their art language and a greater vocabulary, which is a part of cognitive processing.
Stress Regulation
Creating art also helps children wire their brains to regulate stress. Art gives them the tools to learn how to calm themselves down. Tactile cognitive processing occurs when children create art; the neural networks in their brains fire up and signal their brain to focus solely on what they’re doing with their hands, blocking out outside thoughts and stimuli. What happens is, if kids are stressed out or upset about something and they’re making art, they can’t focus on that. Art involves active learning, meaning they have to focus on what they’re doing immediately, which takes away the upsetting, stressful things that are happening in their environment.
Implicit Memory
Another area of brain development art fuels is Implicit memory. When kids learn repeated movements, they’re strengthening their Implicit memory and are actually storing this new information. The next time that they go about making an art, their Implicit memory kicks in and their hand movements will come naturally—the actions are wired into their memories. That means they don’t have to consciously think about every minute action; they will see a paintbrush, and instinctively know to pick it up, dip it into the palette or water, and start creating. The sensory information of seeing the paintbrush and then holding it in their hand immediately sends that information to their brain, triggering an action. Building this Implicit memory helps develop more skills down the road; they’ll have this Implicit memory already stored in their brains and can then focus on the next steps or deeper ideas.
Spatial Intelligence
Spatial intelligence is learned through creating with forms in space. When children make art, they become aware of the spatial relationships among objects in the realm of their own experiences. This gives them the ability to visualize and manipulate elements, rotate objects, and distinguish depth and balance—which is critical in early childhood brain development. It’s important to note that spatial intelligence is something that cannot be taught unless kids are actually doing an activity; art gives them the experience of seeing how things interact and happen dynamically or statically.
Where to Start: Lesson Plans to Ensure Art Stimulates Kids’ Brain Development
Here’s some great news: students will automatically start getting all these benefits any time they create art! That means you don’t have to have any fancy art mediums or materials or complicated lesson plans. You can do simple activities to make sure art stimulates kids’ brain development. The more art lessons and activities you plan for your Montessori students, the more they’ll deepen their neural networks and build on all these developmental skills. Any art lesson, especially those that involve process-based or exploratory learning, will benefit kids’ brain development.
I’ve worked with so many Montessori teachers from all over the world and they’ve all told me how intimidating it is to actually teach art in their classrooms. I want art to be accessible to every child, from early elementary on up—and to do that, I know that actually teaching art needs to be easy.
One way I love to introduce teachers to the idea of how to teach art is by showing you how to work with tools you already have—like storybooks! I created a virtual training that teaches you how to teach art by using storybooks to create art lesson themes. And as a bonus, I share some quick-planning ideas to help you regularly and easily schedule art activities in your Montessori classroom.
To get access to this incredible training (for free!), click here!
No part of this blog may be used or be reproduced in any manner whatsoever including reproducing, publishing, performing, and making any adaptions of the work – including translation into another foreignlanguage without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Nature of Art® Publishing P.O. Box 443 Solana Beach, California 92075.
Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography | aquarium.ucsd.edu
You may know that students learn in a variety of styles, so giving them a variety of options—including tactile and sensory experiences—will greatly benefit them. That’s one of the (very many) reasons I love art! Montessori sensory art activities and projects give students the chance to explore and use their senses as they learn and better understand new concepts and ideas.
Tactile learning happens when students touch things with their own hands. When a child touches an object, information is sent through the sensory nerves in their fingers to their brain. Almost all art making requires using direct touch to construct, build, or express.
Visual art uses direct sensory touching; students use their hands to create artworks. It stimulates learning in different ways, beyond just visual or auditory learning. For a developing child, tactile exploring can also lead to better fine-motor function and control.
Tactile learning is recommended for highly active children or kinesthetic learning styles; these types of children learn better by physical action and tactile sensations. Visually, hearing, and linguistically impaired children greatly benefit by tactile learning sensations.
It’s becoming increasingly important for young children to have tactile exploring opportunities. Montessori sensory art projects are a perfect way for tactile sensations to take place. Without these opportunities, a child can miss out on important spatial learning. Creating and making through touch helps with brain connectivity that can’t come from just sight and hearing sensory systems.
Sensory tactile art exploration is very important for young children to have. I recommend providing lots of tactile art experiences for the students in your classroom. Experiment and try out a variety of sensory art projects that can aid in learning and be experienced by hand manipulations. The more they can use their hands and fingers directly, the more connections they’ll build.
Most teachers don’t know that you can teach very basic art simply by using a child’s curious sensory system. Plus, kids can relate to the topics they are touching and feeling much better than abstract ideas they can’t feel or see first hand.
Where to Start: Montessori Sensory Art Projects That Utilize the Senses
Approach teaching lessons by thinking of the ways kids use their sensory system. Then frame your art activities to help students discover the topics you’re teaching and see details differently.
I teach my science art method by focusing on these three sensory systems:
Visual perception
Cognitive
Fine-motor
If you plan your art specials to incorporate all three of these sensory systems, you’ll be helping your students better understand their Montessori lessons.
Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography | aquarium.ucsd.edu
One Step Further: Integrating Science with Drawing
When I’m leading a lesson that focuses on sensorial experiences, one of my favorite things to do is take my students outside to closely observe the different aspects of nature. I’ll talk about how scientists and naturalists record their findings using drawings and paintings. Then I’ll ask my students to look closely and observe the natural patterns.
We’ll look at natural objects with a magnifying glass, and feel the specimens with our fingertips. I then ask my students to describe in words what they noticed and could feel, and ask them what they know about the specimens in relation to nature and where they came from. Finally, I’ll challenge students to record their findings by drawing each one with a pencil. Encouraging them to record the details on each object they saw, and allowing them to trace the different items if they didn’t yet feel confident in free-hand drawing. Then I’ll give them the choice to finish their drawing with colored pencils or watercolor paint.
Here are some ideas for nature specimens for your students to observe and record:
A variety of leaves
Bird feathers
Starfish
Lemon (or other citrus) slices
Wood chips
Seashells
A Short Cut Just for You – Professional Development
Sensory art and sensorial art experiences are just one part of teaching students art literacy and artist habits. If you want the tools to help your students become little artists, then you need a foundation of knowing how children are able to learn art. In my online course, Art Teaching Blueprint, I give you everything you need to easily start successfully teaching art to your your Montessori students.
Art Teaching Blueprint is about to open!
I’ve been helping Montessori teachers all over the world bring art into their classroom for more than 20 years. And I’ve honed and perfected my own art teaching method, and have developed it to complement and support Montessori philosophy, so that you can start teaching art in your classroom too. From setting up a proper art environment and art shelf, to giving your students age-appropriate mediums to explore with, I cover everything a Montessori teacher needs to know.
I’m so excited to be opening up the course one more time for this year! You can sign up for the course starting November 1. But if you want a reminder, and to save your seat now, click here to join the waitlist!
No part of this blog may be used or be reproduced in any manner whatsoever including reproducing, publishing, performing, and making any adaptions of the work – including translation into another foreignlanguage without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Nature of Art® Publishing P.O. Box 443 Solana Beach, California 92075.
Fall is here (in North America, at least)! Have you gotten your pumpkin spice latte or a warm apple cider yet? Fall is one of my favorite times of year! It’s not just the cool, crisp air and reasons for wearing a sweater…from an art teacher’s perspective, there’s so much inspiration out in nature—outside the classroom—for fun and exciting artworks that celebrate the season. Montessori fall crafts are the perfect activity to help students connect what they’re learning inside the classroom with beautiful pieces of nature they can find outside the classroom.
Fall crafts are a great way to connect kinesthetic learning (or art making) with what students are already learning in the classroom. It caters to a different learning style and creates new opportunities for students to use their imaginations and express themselves. This keeps them engaged and excited about what they’re learning!
It doesn’t have to be a challenge to plan your art specials. One of the best things about using autumn as inspiration for your art specials and projects is that it makes things easier on you! You don’t have to comb through Pinterest or other corners of the internet looking for ideas—very likely, they’re right outside your door.
Where to Start: Use Both Outdoor Montessori Fall Crafts & Indoor Crafts
I always encourage Montessori teachers to take their students outside to find fall craft inspiration. The changing colors of the leaves, naked trees, morning dew on the grass, migrating birds, and new fall botanicals (like fungi, pumpkins, and gourds) can all lead to great art projects. And all you have to do is go outside and observe the changes.
On days when you can’t head outside, turn to books for your Montessori fall crafts inspiration. There are so many books for Montessori students that have beautiful pictures of fall leaves. You can have students paint or draw what they see (depending on their age and level), or even just give them paints within the same color palette as the leaves in the books and let them explore the medium.
Here are four fall-leaf books that I really love:
Fletcher and the Falling Leaves by Julia Rawlinson
Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert
The Little Yellow Leaf by Carin Berger
Leaves by David Ezra Stein
Bonus Quick Tip: Leaf Luminary Art Project
Here’s one of my favorite Montessori fall crafts that you can do with your students. Send them outside to collect fallen leaves, then use them to create these delightful little luminaries. Your students will be so excited to be able to take them home and show off their art project!
Here’s how to do it:
Step 1: collect leaves Step 2: press leaves so they’re flat Step 3: Use Mod Podge or decoupage glue to adhere leaves to a clear glass Step 4: Let dry overnight
I personally think the fall season can give us hundreds of art activity and project ideas, but just to make it even easier on you (which, really, is such a joy because I get to share my love of both fall and art with you!), I’m giving you a FREE Fall Leaf Inspiration Print.
You can print it out and use it on your art shelf or hang it in your inspiration gallery to during the season, or let students fill it in with beautiful colors. It seems like a simple tool, right? But trust me, it’ll lead to so many amazing, creative artworks! Download the Fall Leaf Inspiration Print by clicking here.
A Short Cut Just for You: Professional Development
Of course, fall is just one season of the school year. If you want the tools to be able to come up with art activities all year long, you need the foundation of understanding how children are able to learn art. In my online course, Art Teaching Blueprint, I give you everything you need to easily start teaching art to your your Montessori students.
I’ve been helping Montessori teachers all over the world bring art into their classroom for more than 20 years. And I’ve honed and perfected my own art teaching method, and have developed it to complement and support Montessori philosophy, so that you can start teaching art in your classroom too. From setting up a proper art environment and art shelf, to giving your students age-appropriate mediums to explore with, I cover everything a Montessori teacher needs to know.
I’m so excited to be opening up the course one more time for this year! You can sign up for the course starting November 1. But if you want a reminder, and to save your seat now, click here to join the waitlist!
No part of this blog may be used or be reproduced in any manner whatsoever including reproducing, publishing, performing, and making any adaptions of the work – including translation into another foreignlanguage without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Nature of Art® Publishing P.O. Box 443 Solana Beach, California 92075.
I’ve spent years observing how young students learn art, and in my experience I’ve seen how sensory art projects and art-making actions can help students achieve better control of their fine motor skills. In fact, I encourage you to look for Montessori fine motor art activities to do with your students in your classroom.
It’s important to understand how fine motor development plays a role in a child’s daily life, both inside and outside of school. They give kids the strength to press, push, pull, and squeeze so they can learn and be able to dress themselves, tie their own shoes, eat without assistance, and play outdoors safely. In the classroom, this translates to holding a pencil to write, using scissors safely, handling papers, opening lunch and supply boxes, and using art supplies (like glue) without a mess.
Increasingly, over the years, early childhood students are coming to my classes and workshops with very little, or even no, finger or hand-strength capabilities. Many Montessori teachers have shared with me that students entering their classrooms also seem to lack the capabilities of completing simple tasks that rely on fine motor skills.
Because these basic skills are lacking, it’s slowing down student progression in the classrooms and some teachers worry that students aren’t able to participate in independent art activities. Not only does that limit a student’s ability to learn and develop their art literacy, it increases the chance of mess or injury in the classroom—and both are major problems.
These issues can be remedied, on a large scale, if you give children the opportunities to make art. In fact, not providing kids with enough chances to do repetitive movements, especially in the lower grades, can delay their confidence to work independently and successfully progress within the school year. Make sure you’re designating plenty of time for your students to work on implicit memory functions—which means performing certain tasks without conscious awareness, while building strength.
Where to Start: Sensory Activities to Build Fine Motor Skills
Typically, when I teach my own classes or go into Montessori classrooms, I start my students out with clay modeling, paint brush stroking, sensory painting, and safety scissor activities. I’ve found that these types of activities, plus many others, can help students develop their skills quickly over a short period of time.
You want to start your students out with very basic one- to two-step isolated movements. For instance, I’ll often introduce clay to a classroom and then we’ll work on kneading the clay and forming it into a sphere. After that, I’ll give them time to just sculpt simple creatures, botanicals, or anything else they desire—but only working with simple movements. Same thing with painting—I’ll teach kids one isolated movement like dipping a paintbrush into a palette then making a smooth brush stroke. I’ll give kids time for these movements over and over so that they build implicit memory and concentrate on that one moment.
Fortunately, there are some great Montessori fine motor art activities and movements that can adapted for early childhood, lower elementary, and upper elementary students. These types of art making activities will help students develop fine motor control and small muscles in their fingers and hands.
The guide includes 10 different types of movements that will help strengthen students’ hand-eye coordination and help refine their manual dexterity. Each movement can even be used to set up a simple, stress-free lesson; or you can make sure these movements are involved with any other art lesson you have planned.
Visual Arts Teaching Guide for 13 Months – 6 Years Old
This book includes: ✅ My proprietary art teaching method ✅ The proper and complete list of art materials ✅ A guide for staging and setting up a successful art environment ✅ Tips and art lesson ideas for early childhood ✅ A convenient three-ring binder presentation
No part of this blog may be used or be reproduced in any manner whatsoever including reproducing, publishing, performing, and making any adaptions of the work – including translation into another foreignlanguage without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Nature of Art® Publishing P.O. Box 443 Solana Beach, California 92075.
Create powerful curriculum that will engage and excite your students in fresh new ways by combining lessons with Montessori arts and crafts. Not only does it allow students to develop their creative thinking and imaginations, but it also helps them make tangible connections to sometimes complicated concepts. Thinking about subject matters through art construction supports students to think in complex ways.
Bringing Montessori arts and crafts into you classroom is as simple as combining them together with what you’re already teaching in the classroom presently. It can be as easy as putting out different art mediums and having students respond to the stories and ideas you’re sharing through their works.
When I visit Montessori classrooms to teach art, I always check in with the teacher and ask: What’s going on in the classroom? What are the important lessons you’re teaching right now? Then I customize the art activity to support the teachers topics by creating art projects around those ideas. All you have to do is simply look at your core lessons and turn those into easy art activities.
Imagine not having to stress about what art activity you have to teach!
Creating and making artworks is highly kinesthetic, so if you have some students that benefit from this learning style, you’re giving that student more opportunities to engage and understand topics better. This allows students to use mental energy (in creating) along with physical energy (in making). Art making is a lovely way to present new ideas to different types of learners, setting you up to be far more successful in helping all your students learn—no matter their learning style.
There’s no reason to go searching for art ideas outside of your classroom when your core lesson can be an inspiration. You just need to add to what your students are learning already. I promise it will make things so much easier for you—you may even end up enjoying art lesson planning!
I dedicate a full chapter (chapter 17) to this topic in my book, Introducing Visual Arts to Montessori Classrooms. So, if you want more information on how to integrate visual art into the curriculum, you can order the book here.
Where to Start: Combine Montessori Arts and Crafts with Core Lessons
Here’s a couple of great way to combine art activities with your Montessori lesson plans:
Take kids on nature walks to observe their surroundings, maybe collect specimens like rocks, leaves, seeds, flowers to use in art activities.
Encourage students to keep nature journals with sketches and diagrams of plants, insects, birds, animals, weather, season.
Create botanical bookmarksby stamping leaves with an ink pad, creating leaf rubbings with crayons, taping or gluing botanicals to bookmarks, or by drawing or painting images of botanicals. (Bookmarks can be cut into any shapes or sizes.)
The Phases of Art Development is a quick digital course that explains how art making can help students develop their creativity, fine-motor skills, and focus. More importantly, I share what types of projects students at every age are capable of completing safely, and without making a mess.
I created a FREE online video mini course—Phases of Art Development—that teaches exactly what kids are capable of learning Understanding what your students can learn (in early childhood, lower elementary, or upper elementary) will help you decide what to teach them.
Even better—the mini course comes with a rock painting integrated lesson. You’ll have everything you need to set up an art activity that reflects a Montessori Great Lesson. You can sign up for the FREE mini training and get the rock painting art lesson by clicking here.
Don’t worry, I have a very special resource for elementary teachers too! My all new Color Theory: Practice & Process Curriculum has dozens and dozens of color theory lessons for lower elementary and upper elementary Montessori students. The lessons build on each other to provide students with the knowledge they need to understand color theory and start the artistic process. Plus, every lesson is laid out, step-by-step, so all you have to do is read up and follow the instructions! To purchase Colory Theory Curriculum for your classroom, click here.
No part of this blog may be used or be reproduced in any manner whatsoever including reproducing, publishing, performing, and making any adaptions of the work – including translation into another foreignlanguage without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Nature of Art® Publishing P.O. Box 443 Solana Beach, California 92075.
