Planning activities for young children in any curriculum should stem from the interests, needs, abilities, and cultural influences of the children in the group. Appropriate art activities for preschool-aged children should be open-ended, play-based, and fun. And remember open-ended means no child’s art work will look like another child’s – each child gets to choose how their art will turn out!

Category or concept:

What is the general art medium you are using? Like marking/drawing tools; 2D collage; 3D collage; paint and finger paint; manipulatives like play dough, goop, etc., Check your text or syllabus for additional categories.

Title of art activity:

You can title your activity anything you’d like; it helps if you include something descriptive.

What to include in your plan:

1. Learning Objectives:

Objectives must be observable and measurable; this means you can tell

whether or not the child accomplishes them. If you begin the objective

with the phrase “The child will…” or “The child will be able to…”

and follow this with an action word (verb), it might help you in writing your

objectives. For example:

• “The child will blend primary colors to make a secondary color.”
• “The child will match his/her actions to the descriptive words ‘fast, slow, high, low.'”
• “The child will participate in a cooperative experience with other children.”

1. Materials and set-up needed: Be very descriptive in this section. Include specific details about:

• So what materials will you need to gather to for the children to enjoy the activity? Be specific and detailed about the color, size, texture, number of items, kinds of items, etc.

• Share exactly how you will set-up the activity and display materials, including a diagram or picture if that will help. Remember, how you set up the activity should help guide the children to know how many children can join in at once; and suggest how the activity is done. For example, paint brushes next to the water colors with water for cleaning the brush.

1. How to do the activity/process:

Describe what actions and skills the children will use to participate in this activity. For example, in a finger painting experience, will you be putting the paint on the paper or will the child? Will you push up the children’s sleeves first? If you listed scraping materials in #2, how will the children use them?

1. Helpful hints and guidance needs:

For example: Will the children wear smocks or cover ups? Will you push up the children’s sleeves first? How will you and the children clean up? Any safety factors?

1. Modifications:

I’d like you to share how you would modify or make the activity accessible for a child with one of the following disabilities:

• sensory sensitivity issues OR
• cognitive delays OR
• limited use of right side due to cerebral palsy

1. Two open ended questions and two appropriate comments:

• Share two open-ended questions AND two appropriate comments that you might use when talking with the children about their art.
• Remember, open ended means there are many, many different answers!
• And remember our class discussion about using descriptive not evaluative comments when talking with children about their art work. Something that can help you be descriptive is using the elements of art in your comments.

1. Resources used – where did you find your art idea?

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