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.

This activity is a wonderful activity for fine motor coordination and is loved by girls all ages.

We have  been doing it in our art camp as a regular activity and as a filler activity. The little girls who are between 5-8 absolutely love this activity and its a great transition activity. When they are waiting to go to another activity or if they finish a specific activity before the rest of the kids than they go to work on their sewing’s. The truth is my 11 yr old son asked to do it also and he took it up so its not only for girls.

The idea is for the kids to sew with either one color or many, create a pattern and THEN they can create something out of it. Its not competitive and they love to sit around d and talk while they sew.

You can make wallets, bookmarks, frames or just plain wall hangings out of the finished sewing’s. It’s probably a good idea to know what the kids will be making out of it before they start so  you can cut the pieces accordingly.

Unless the kids are old enough you need to be available to thread the needles for them and then to knot it at the end. You need to use very blunt yarn needles for this and make sure the material you get has large enough holes.

I have enclosed a few images that show the type of yarn we use and some of the sewing in progress and finished.

The material has to be bought in an art supply store, I actually found an image in an art supply store and you can see from here the kind of canvas or plastic  sewing pieces you can use, plus you can get the large blunt needles that you would need for this activity at stores like tis also

Years ago when doing this type of activity I used to be able to get stainless steel blunt needles but when my daughter ordered for camp this summer she got plastic ones. They are a bit blunter I guess but they bend to much for my taste.

Gray (or grey clay)has to be stored properly if you want to be able to use it over and over again. I explained in another post briefly, why this clay is better than playdough and I showed you how to cut it.

This short post is to teach you how to store it.

First you have the children roll the clay they were using into  ball the size of an orange or a grapefruit. Then using their thumbs as shown above, make a small indentation in the ball.

Take a small bit of water and pour it slowly into the hole.

You need to supervise the children when they are doing this at first as they can go water crazy with water splashing all over the place. there needs to be a very small bit of water put into the hole.

Once the water is in, you gently smush some of the clay with your fingers over the hole.

The children can then lay the balls of clay in a  plastic container. Originally I had learned that when storing the clay you need to first put it into a plastic bag, then put a damp rag over it and cover it tightly in the plastic container.

I did however discovered firstly that I don’t need a plastic bag. I then saw that I  dont think I need the wet rag as it often gets moldy.

I think you will be fine if you follow the above directions and close the plastic container tightly.

This way when the children are ready to use the clay again, they just lift it out of the container and they are ready to go.

If you are not sure exactly what this gray clay is you can check it out in its 5 lb form here Marblex Gray Clay. It also comes in 25 lb.. which is suitable  if  you are going to be using it for a large group for a long period of time.