St. Stephen the Martyr Preschool

Creativity is the process of expressing an idea. It involves the interplay of energies between the mind and the body, which results in the creation of a new object or event. This object or event is a symbol of its creators self and experiences. Expressions of creativity begin with an idea originating from within the unconscious mind that evolves further into an action which eventually brings the initial idea into a concrete form - the result. This could be a poem, a play, a song, a sculpture, a painting, a dance, or a new cure for a serious illness. Creativity is important for it fosters aesthetic development and perceptual order. This is seen in the areas of color, space, shape, dimension, size, texture, line, and value. Creativity along with sensory, spatial, musical, holistic, intuitive, spiritual and simultaneous thought process makes use of the right hemisphere of the brain to function more as a unified whole in conjunction with its left hemisphere.

Physical development is aided by sensorial experiences the children encounter as they make contact with different mediums such as crayons, cardboard, scissors, brushes, poems, pictures and music. Fine motor coordination is developed and continually refined as children's hands use tools and gain control over them. Pouring, painting, pinching clay, threading, weaving, gluing, drawing and rolling are just a few examples. Large muscle control is enhanced through sidewalk chalking, drawing on large paper, acting, using playground equipment and in obtaining and returning tools and equipment to their original source. As children work with materials and tools, they work to gain control both of themselves and the materials they are using. Spatial relationship words are called into play such as "overlap", "top", "bottom", "left", "right". Intellectual development is enriched through a vocabulary that grows larger. Color names, shapes, names of tools and most especially the adult's choice of how he or she will provide guidelines to the child fosters increasing success for the child. Words will become the symbols for objects and as the child grows one material will come to be used to represent another. For example, a box will not be simply a box, but could represent a car. Emotional development is fostered through trust. Trust that there will always be a prepared environment with an adult who delivers clear messages that convey that language is accurate. Autonomy on the part of the adult and transferred to the children will allow them increased independence to do activities themselves. Initiative will increase as the child is allowed to have responsibility for both his actions and the final product. Self- awareness increases as the child continually constructs himself through the artwork he creates.

The child progresses through six universal stages of artistic development. Stage I is seen in children aged one through five years and is the scribble stage. Scribbling is done for the sheer pleasure of doing it. Stage II is seen in children aged two, three and four. Shape and line works emerge. Boundaries begin to be defined in the form of circles, squares, and additional decorative strokes. In Stage III, the children are ages four, five and six. The shape and line designs of the previous stage are used to represent something meaningful to the individual child such as a mommy, their dog or cat, or the house they live in. In Stage IV, the children's ages are five, six and seven. Space and relationships are explored. Objects in a picture begin to be placed in relationship to each other. A base line and a skyline appear with the addition of a sun in the sky and a house on the base line. The skyline may begin to be colored blue, the base line green. Colors begin to be used more naturally and more details are gradually added to a picture. The children in Stage V are six, seven or eight years of age. He or she moves from doing to making. The child becomes increasingly able to preplan, evaluate self-work and re-plan as a result of his personal evaluation. Shape overlapping, perspective taking and portrayal of distance begin to emerge in this stage. Stage VI is seen in children ages eight or nine years of age. The child begins to move into realism with a desire for photographic representation. This stage requires an adult's presence and guidance to help the child see new ways of doing and yet continue to feel confident with himself and in his own experiences.

One should keep these six stages of creative growth in mind as well as their corresponding age levels when setting self-goals to be achieved with young children. The children in a 2-1/2 through 6 years old classroom will developmentally be in levels I through IV with most of them stopping at Stage IV. Some children could conceivably be in Stage V, but I think this would be rare.

Initially, six very basic activities should be arranged on an art shelf for the children to begin developing basic skills to be used as they progress in their creative development. These activities are basic cutting, (I prefer to call it sniping because the child uses very short cuts on short pieces of paper), gluing, coloring, painting and the use of modeling clay. Careful and precise presentation of each of these activities to individual children and subsequent observation on the part of the teacher will lead her to either add to the basic lesson a further step for the child or change the lesson to continue its appeal without changing its complexity. An example might be in the area of play dough. Green play dough could be changed to yellow with the scent of lemon added and a new cookie cutter substituted for the previous one. The hesitant and halting child will be called to the work and unbeknownst to himself, skills will be established and confidence enhanced.

For children ready to move on, new works can be placed on the shelf. Because of the three-year span which exists in a Montessori classroom, some children will always be young and inexperienced. Some children will have the benefit of having been in the environment a previous year and possibly two so many activities need to be included in the art area to meet the many developmental levels of the children. I would always begin with the initial five activities of snipping with scissors, gluing snipped paper, coloring with one color, painting with one color and play dough.

For children ready to begin their second year I would add more complex cutting in the form of cutting diagonal lines, shapes, spirals, folded paper and textured paper. I would allow them to cut and glue their own paper to form mosaics and overlapping shapes. I would introduce tearing, sealing, dipping, basic stitching, weaving, folding and threading activities. I would combine coloring and tempera paint and introduce two different colors of tempera to be used together.

For those children who have had two solid years of art within a Montessori classroom, I would provide in their third year, Stage III activities found in Regina Barrett's book, Let Out the Sunshine. These activities make use of skills that began in the initial presentations and are further enhanced in extension activities. One example of a Stage III activity for cutting and gluing is stained glass effect. Another is a mural. The mural work allows the child the opportunity to combine skills acquired from previous works into something new, which he gets to draw and then fill in with cut mosaics. Another example of a Stage III activity is in the combination of coloring and tempera paint to create snow scenes or night scenes.

Using Regina Barrett's book as it was intended will provide the teacher with unlimited activities to use with each child in her classroom. It will help them to acquire very simple skills and the vocabulary necessary to move on to the next higher level of knowledge, depending on what the teacher decides to emphasize. Her emphasis should take into consideration her own personal creativity and sensitivity to what would be appealing to the children in her care. It has been my personal observation that every class has a slightly different flavor to it that colors what activities will be relished and what others will simply be ignored. It is a most appropriate curriculum for the child for it provides a basic lesson, and variations of that initial lesson to keep interest peaked while still reinforcing the initial goal. It provides tiny increments of difficulty in its extensions and provides level III activities for the child who is ready. As a result, the child is guaranteed successful experiences. Experiences that were built on previous successful experiences and that will lead to further success on the part of the child.

This a passage by Maria Montessori poignantly expresses her thought on art, "Nevertheless, every man has his share of artistic imagination. He has the instinct to create the beautiful with his mind and from this instinct duly developed come all the vast treasurers of art, scattered almost like crumbs of gold where ever there was an intensity of civil life, where ever the intelligence had time to mature in peace". (Montessori, The Advanced Montessori Method, pg. 202)