Expressive Arts and Design Play Activities for Children

Art and Design is a key area of the EYFS and something that i have a great amount of enthusiasm for. I'm not the best artist in the world, however I have come to realize that it is a great way for children to interact with one another, in addition to expressing how they feel.

Every culture/religion has something unique regarding what they class as art. In Islam they have patterns which make beautiful and colourful designs. Some of the different examples can be seen below: 

     

My activity that i would plan would try to get the child to see the different kinds of cultures and kinds of drawings people do and to try to get the children to be able to express what they would like. 

I would set up a table with about 5 chairs and get Rainbow Colour scratch paper (as seen below) and allow the children to scratch out different patterns of pictures as they please. not only does this enable them to socialize by having a few chairs at the table, however that are able to share ideas and draw in a more fun way as the paper changes colour while scratching and not by getting a pen and drawing. In order to encourage some of the children to get started with their picture I would do one myself before the lesson and show the children what I was able to do and how. From this point I would put my example up on the board for them to get an idea of what they can do and then go around once in a while and see how everyone is getting on.

In order to make the children more confident about their artist skills and their ability to create pictures I would then have a class discussion about the different pictures drawn after and what they mean to the children. After getting the feedback I think that making a display of this would not only look good in the classroom, however also show parents and the children about the skills and different ideas each child has.

If it was a successful activity and I saw that the children thoroughly enjoyed it, I would then go on to using this paper throughout the year, to make different things, for example nice banners, pictures based on a certain topic, possible masks and so on. Examples of these can be seen below: