At the end of the typical daycare day, a plethora of art projects go home, from the hand drawn picture in marker that shows mom, dad and brother and sister as crudely drawn circles with arms and legs coming from the head, to the intricate project from Oriental Trading Company project made of tiny foam pieces that you know were mostly assembled by the teacher and NOT your child.
Then there comes the other art.
The projects that appear to be made out of colored shaving cream, or are obviously supposed to be something, but because of "creative cutting" that has missed the designated lines, you are forced to say, "That's pretty honey-its a...flower, right?"
What many parents are not aware of is a concept called, "Process Oriented Art." This type of art differs from "Product" oriented art. While the latter may provide cute items to be hung on the fridge, this style may hinder children in several ways.
First, when the child is given a project that has an extremely specific parameters they can more quickly feel like a failure when they cannot match the example that the childcare provider has made.
Also, focusing on the process rather than the product allows each small success to be praised, even if all skills are not mastered. This can be especially true with the skills of cutting and using a marker. Although lines cut or drawn may be wobbly, both child and adult can focus on the fact that Sarah for the first time held the scissors correctly on her own and mastered the "Alligator Chomp" motion of closing the tool.
The process that is focused on in the creation of a project may not be a process of learning to do art well. Sometimes projects are created to foster teamwork within a group of children, or to explore different senses. One of the favorite projects of my children is the use of sugar, Kool-Aid, and a small amount of water on a piece of paper to smell and feel the texture and eventually taste the mixture. The end product is a somewhat clumpy finger-paint effect, but the kids always love showing it to their parents at the end.
The next time that you pick up your child at the end of the day and they have produced something that you're not quite sure of the purpose or what the end product is, it is useful to remember the other purposes that the project may have been made for.
If you want to learn more on this topic, and hear about a process oriented project that my center engaged in recently, visit my blog post,
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