Visual Arts in Early Childhood Education

Describes the broad range of learning areas that can be supported through the visual arts and the significant role they play in enhancing children’s thinking skills and for developing pedagogies of shared inquiry and co-construction.

Focuses on how to support children’s art-making through teacher-child interactions and how to extend children’s visual art skills at the same time as promoting thinking and discussion with and amongst children about the subjects they are representing.

Examines in depth the concepts and prompts to use when planning visual art experiences for children. We work through an example of a planning an art experience focused on a contemporary artist’s work, before supporting you to think through an art experience to offer in your own setting.

Develops further the idea of the visual arts as a tool for inquiry and investigation, with a focus on the ways in which visual languages can help children’s thinking to become more complex.

Examines the pedagogy and practice of Reggio Emilia, and its focus on supporting children’s visual expression to provoke and complicate children’s inquiries, before offering guidance about how you might connect a visual arts experience to children’s interests and inquiries in your setting, to help children use the arts to explore and think about these more deeply.

Examines environments that promote engagement and inquiry through the arts, consider ingthe importance of materials for the visual arts, and review some of the research on the benefits of ‘loose parts’ for children’s creativity.

Extends the discussion on the intentional selection and presentation of materials for artistic exploration and expression, and supports you to develop and implement a visual arts experience for children that enables them to explore their working theories and extend an inquiry.

This part concludes the course by helping you to examine your professional identity in relation to the provision of visual arts experiences for children, and to reflect on ways to develop your knowledge, skills, and dispositions, as well as inspiring you with ideas about how to get started in delivering a visual arts programme in your setting.