Glue or paste whats the difference?

glue or paste is a definite must when it comes ot many crafts and art projects. Of course many kids love to play around with staplers but they really have their limitations.

Paste is really an old time product that is not used much anymore but there are definitely some benefits tot i.

First of all, it doesn’t spill. Secondly it is a very sensory material and the really littleids love that mushy feeling they get when spreading the paste with their fingers over their papers.

The truth is many of these young children don’t even care about putting anything on the paste after they finish with it. They just enjoy the activity of smearing on its own.

One problem with paste is that it cannot be used with materials that are too heavy so its really only good for thin papers. It also tends to crack when dry so all and all it should really only be used with young children for the experience of the paste itself.

Glue on the other hand is much stronger, but sticker. It does get on clothing more easily and though many children do end up spreading it with their fingers (and then pulling the dried glue off of their fingers for the next hour) it can be easily spread with a paintbrush or a crafts stick.

There are even small brushes specially created for glue called glue brushes.

But what happens if you have not glue in the house and you are feeling a bit inventive.
I found the coolest recipe for making homemade glue that you must check out.

It may be a little messy and time consuming but fun.

Aside from the fun it is great for kids to see that not everything comes straight from the store in a bottle and you can actually make some of those things.

Enjoy and let me know how it comes out.

Play dough definitely has it’s benefits. It doesn’t make the kids hands dirty and it comes in small containers. But it  certainly does get all over the place, with small pieces sticking to shoes and carpets and hair.

Depending on what the needs of your children are, play dough doesn’t come close to the satisfaction that gray clay gives to children. Clay and kids is a natural match. Aside form being so much fun it definitely is a very  therapeutic  medium for children to use. Think of this way. Wouldn’t you rather your child pound the clay than pound his sister.

It’s more messy than play dough and takes more to take care of but the pleasure kids get out of it plus the art that kids can do with it is worth all of the mess and bother.

You need to be dedicated and want the best for your children. If you just don’t want to be bothered than this wont work for you and you will revert back to the good old play dough

Gray clay is an honest to goodness art experience.

There are a few things you need to know before jumping in to giving the children this type of clay to use.

1. It is bought it blocks. I think 5 lb. blocks and up to to 20lb or 25lb.
2. It needs to be cut with a wire or string. (see picture )
3. It must always be stored in a closed plastic container.
4. You can keep it in it’s plastic and then put into the container
5. Children should be covered with smocks as it can get very dirty
6. Try not to give the children utensils to work with at first. They should first get used to seeing what they can do with the clay with their hands and fingers.
7. The children should spend a few days playing with the clay before they attempt to make things and let them dry. The more time they spend just using it, the more they learn its properties and what they can and can’t do with it.
8. There is a definite way to make sure there is proper clay storage to be able to reuse another time.

There are many art stores you can buy the gray clay and you will probably want to use the 5lb box if you are doing this at home.  For teachers you will want to purchase the largest amount.

One of the reasons this type of clay is so wonderful for young children is that it is extremely sensory and it allows the children to get dirty in an acceptable way.

I have  a friend who was teaching preschool and had a little girl who refused to use the bathroom.

The teacher discovered that the little girl mom was a clean fanatic since her mother was a bit obsessive  and this little girl was scared to make herself dirty.

My friend started giving this child lots of clay to play with and after a few weeks this little girl was able to use the bathroom. This is like real therapy in action with just a bit of clay.

Playing with the clay gave the little girl an outlet and allowed her to free herself up to be able to use her natural functions normally.

To clean up after a session with clay, you will need large sponges and alot of water.

Sometimes the children themselves enjoy the cleanup process more than the clay playing itself.

You can see pictures of how to store the clay in this post

Back to school arts and crafts with mixed media using paint and collage .

The activity I am going to suggest now is a mixed media one depicting the children’s summer vacation and actually has 3 parts to it.

Materials: Plain white paper, markers, crayons, paint in colors of green, brown, tan, 2 shades of blue, gray. Paintbrushes and water, large manila tag board, glue, scissors.

Title of artwork

What I did on my summer vacation

Part 1:

1. Discuss with the children or child what some of the things they did on their vacation
2. Try to narrow them down to one experience that they would like to remember
3. Out of that experience narrow them down to what they remember about it.
4. Give the children plain white paper and with markers and crayons let them draw many of the things they remember. You can use a few sheets of paper as they are going to be cutting out these pictures.
5. After they have finished with their people, bicycles, animals, boats, suns etc., give them scissors and have them cut out these pictures and put them in a special place.

Part 2:

1. Give children a large pieces of manila tag board, either white or manila colored. Do  not work on small pieces as they have no room to maneuver.
2. Depending on what scene they have decided to do will depend on what colors of paint you will give them. The basic idea here is to paint a background for their pictures. If they were at a beach they will be making either sand, water and sky or just sand and sky etc. If they are doing a park they may want green and blue. Discuss with them what colors they think they will need.
3. Instruct them to divide their paper either in 1/2 of more unevenly depending on how much stuff they made for the ground or the sky.
4. Let them paint their ground and their sky and allow paintings to dry.

Part 3:

1. When painting is dry they can take all of their pieces of artwork that they drew and cut out, arrange them on their background and when ready, paste them in the places that are most pleasing to them.
2. After they are done, you can give them some black markers and have them add in with the markers any additional thing they wold need to complete their artwork.

When they are done, you can take an index card, write the title of their artwork with their name in the corner and put in the corner of the art.

Truly a mixed media piece of art work.

Art safety is one of the most important considerations you need to take into account when preparing art activities to do with preschool or actually any age children.

Actually the younger the children the more careful you have to be with art materials. Toddlers and babies tend to put things in their mouths, stick things up their noses and ears and are especially fascinated with bottles. Babies and toddlers to eat everything and they often don’t  differentiate between food and non food.

With older children you have to worry more about the materials themselves and vapors and toxins. that some art materials are made with.

To begin with let me explain some of the risk factors associated with some art materials.

1. Children absorb toxic materials alot more rapidly than adults which can effect their nervous systems and brains.
2. Children themselves are smaller so anything that they ingest or breathe in that is unhealthy will be more concentrated
3. Children don’t have much strength and will often open bottles with their teeth leaving their mouths very near to the possibly toxic materials.
4. Many children suck their fingers or thumbs after touching art materials
5. Kids also tend to sniff things which may have harmful vapors

How to make sure the children have SAFE experiences with art:

• Read labels: If label say keep out of reach of children it is probably best not to use it at all with younger children and under close supervision with older children.
• Only use supplies like paint and glues that say FOR CHILDREN only
• Avoid old supplies as standards change and you never know if what you have lying around the house for a few years is still considered safe
• Teach children the proper way to use the materials by modeling how to use them
• Stay as close to the really young ones as kids must have enough supervision

When giving the children art activities make sure that there is a secure workplace for them with all unsafe materials out of reach.

Try to use only washable paints and markers and use the school liquid glue as opposed to any aerosol sprays.

Also try when the children use chalk make an attempt to rub off any extra chalk so that they don’t ingest any of the dust.

If they need to use glazes use a lead free one and make sure you are using it with the children.

All in all there are so many child friendly art supplies today that you really have  nothing to worry about if you just make sure everything says for children. Don’t let your over concern for safety keep the children away from wonderful art experiences.

There are many websites you can go to to check out more details of various art products and their art safety levels.

Art in education has always had somewhat mixed reviews. There are many schools that don’t believe that art belongs in education. They believe that there is art and then there is education and the two have nothing to do with each other.

I am a big believer in the importance of art in education, as part of education and I what I believe is based on the research that having art in education helps kids learn.

When I was a graduate student at Bank Street College of Education there was a wonderful book I read when  taking my Art  for Teachers course. It was called “An Experiment in Education” by a woman named Sybil Marshall. Ms Marshall  died in 2005 at the age of 91. The book itself was printed in 1963 in England and tells of Ms. Marshalls experiences  in working with children in very remote rural locations, using art as a basis for her educational philosophy.

There were many ages grouped together and children learned according to their level.

I would like to share with you some of the things I learned from Ms. Marshall and if you choose  you can choose  AN EXPERIMENT IN EDUCATION and read it yourself, it’s a great read.

Sybil Marshall believed that the first prerequisite of a good teacher is to know what she/he is trying to teach. As a result one needs to be actively involved in always educating yourself and then to have the ability to judge which part of the knowledge you gained is suitable for the children.

The second prerequisite would be to be able to pass on this knowledge in as few words as possible.

There are still too many she says that regard “to talk” and “to teach” as synonymous.

One needs to know the place of arts in education as a whole and there is no limit to the variety of subjects the children will tackle with complete confidence if their early experiences with art is free enough.

Courage and enthusiasm will take them places you never dreamed of.

It is essential to grasp all of the ideas that make learning more interesting and more easily assimilated and then by teaching children through the means of art this will open doors to the children that may not have been opened to them previously.

Children have a natural gift for expressing themselves in art form and will paint as naturally as they talk or move if they are allowed to.

One cannot tell children however “paint what you like” as it can be terrifying to select just one thing from all of their experiences.

Children that are instructed like that tend to make the house with the chimney and the smoke or something else someone “has shown them how to make”

This is not art or self expression.

When children begin with free exploration and have lots of experiences with art they then will have the confidence to plunge right in when told to paint what they like if the materials are enticing enough.

The search for the right kind of subjects is the teachers job but pretty soon the children will be working alongside the teacher with ideas of their own.

When the children are illustrating a story they need to pinpoint which moment in the story to they want to catch.

One of the most important points that she stresses in the book is that things that really matter are that because of what we teach children, they become interested enough to go on wanting to know and because of how we teach children they learn to think for themselves and have confidence in their own judgment.

By incorporating art into our educational curriculum we are thereby causing the children to love learning more and to want to keep learning.