Toddlers love art.

If you don’t believe me than come look at my neighbors walls.

You would think it was still cavemen time as her children have taken to decorating her walls as the cavemen used to do oh so many years ago.

The truth is though that toddlers are really just learning all about art and materials and how they work.

When my daughter was entering her first year of nursery school, I took her for orientation.

In the classroom there was a table set up with collage materials and paste.

I watched as one little girl under 3 years old, sat down at the table.

She picked up a piece of paper, smeared some paste on it and pasted it down.

She was done.

The assistant in the classroom, a young teacher who was a natural at intuitively understanding children walked over to the table and sat down next to this little girl.

She picked up the paper, turned it over and said to the little girl “look it sticks”

She knew exactly where this little girl was developmentally.

She was learning that paste sticks things to other things.

That’s what toddlers are all about.

They are learning about art materials and the properties of art materials and should not be saddled with trying to make  “projects”.

They are too young and the projects will have no meaning for them.

I remember a friend of mine recounting how her young son came home from school with a  project and said “Look Ma, what my teacher made for you”

They are not dumb just curious and interested in mushing and gluing and pasting and ripping and coloring and cutting.

So to begin I would suggest 3 basic activities for toddlers.

1. Coloring (on papers only)or the sidewalk with chalk
2. Cutting
3. Pasting

Very simple.

The first image is of some toddlers coloring.

Their activity will not last long and it’s best to give them large sheets of paper so that the can really move their arms and fingers when watching as the crayon meets the paper.

I’m not so sure I would give them markers, but you’ll have to play it by ear.

As they get older they will appreciate the diversity of markers more.

You can definitely start teaching them how to cut with children’s scissors and long strips of paper. Sit with them as you teach them to hold a scissor and let them cut up the long strip into tiny squares.

It may take a while until they fully grasp how to use the scissors.

and then when they are done cutting, they can use the squares and anything else they cut to paste onto another sheet of paper.

However, be aware that they are really not interested in what they are making, they are just learning about the glue and will often spend more time just putting the glue all over the place rather then pasting.

You can also give them pasting activities with shapes that you have prepared for them.

So those are the basic activities in art that I would give toddlers and if you give them these type of activities often, you will notice as they grow and mature how they are starting to think more and arrange their collages with more thought and eventually in a few years you will see representational art work from these toddlers no more.