Babies and Toddlers NEED Art! Here’s Why!
1. Tactile Stimulation: This is so beneficial to your little one! Texture experiences your child has as an infant can lead to less texture sensitivities as they get older. Try a variety: rough, smooth, sandy, slimy, squishy, hard and soft!
Home Application: Miss Jill, the art teacher at Gymboree Play and Music in Melbourne, suggests letting your kiddo finger paint in their highchair. You can use edible paints, colorful baby foods, or baby yogurt with a little food coloring! Be prepared for a mess. Messes are ok! You could also let them crawl through the paints in an inflatable kiddie pool! Older kiddos might also enjoy filling an inflatable pool with non-toxic wet, slimy, squishy water beads! It’s a perfect tactile activity for hot summer days!
2. Fine Motor Development: Activate all those muscles in their hands. Working these muscles will encourage the “I Do It Too!” stage to have a successful start!
Home Application: Grab paintbrushes, crayons, play dough… anything! Gripping and controlling a brush, squeezing the glue out of the bottle and pulling stickers off the sheet will do it! Little artists may not bring the paintbrush to the paper, maybe they just wave it around overhead. Fine motor skills are being exercised either way! Don’t forget that one of the best places to see wonderful artwork is on the pages of your kiddos favorite book. Let the little littles, 3 months/4 months, grab and move those pages around for a bit of a fine motor workout.
3. Language acquisition: Make communicating fun and successful!
Home Application: Art play is the best time to talk about colors, shapes and talking through cause and effect. Miss Jill at Gymboree also suggests having a shape or color of the week. Repeating and highlighting that particular color/shape can help your little one understand and eventual use those words and concepts, even if it isn’t always in the right way! New words are exciting and just like everything else, they take some time getting used to. Grab some square Tupperware lids, big circle hula-hoops and all sorts of reused and regular household items to trace with sidewalk chalk. Cover the driveway with creative new shapes too!
4. Power of Choice: Self accomplishment leads to greater self-esteem!
Home Application: Art is about emotion and expression. You can provide the tools and elements and then step back. Let them find pride in their own work. Your kiddo can explore with their senses without expectations for any outcome. Problem solving for themselves and thinking critically about how to use and manipulate their mediums. Some of the best art is created by just laying out a lot of different choices and not giving any particular direction.
5. Creativity: Every piece of art is a MASTERPIECE!
Home Application: Leave your adult sense of reality at the door. Step into a world where cows look like puppy dogs and the bananas are all purple. So many times our need for control takes over and their artwork really becomes our artwork. There is no wrong way to do art. Let them decided where the eyes or mouth should go! Think of Picasso and let them explore. Take a tip from Miss Jill and label the back with what they made! To you it may look like a mess, but they tell you it’s a train! Remember their creativity and write it down!
Not sure if you want this mess in your house or looking for other artistic opportunities for your little? Try out a local class! Art classes are offered for kiddos 16 months through 5 years at Gymboree Play and Music. They believe art is such a fundamental educational activity it’s incorporated into many of their classes, such as, STEAM inspired classes like Baby Lab (0-10 months) and Play Lab (2-5 years) and School Skills classes, which provide opportunities for kiddos to make art and organized crafts in a student teacher environment.
Find out more info for Gymboree classes and on their website
South Brevard County, Florida
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