Dear Families,

There are many ways for children to enjoy art both in child care programs and at home. There is so much your child can learn from art. We can work together as partners to provide your child with creative opportunities that will benefit different areas of their development. Art promotes fine-motor skills, language, social-emotional development, and cognitive development. Art experiences give children the chance to explore and understand the properties of materials and combine them into different media.

Fine-motor development is supported through drawing, painting, and sculpting. Language development benefits from description and use of new words. Children should be encouraged to talk about what they create and reflect on their work. This builds their self-esteem and promotes healthy social-emotional development. Art also fosters cognitive development through activities that solidify cause and effect, reasoning, and analysis. Group work provides opportunities for children to brainstorm and create together. It allows them to share their creations with the larger group or community. 

Art in Family Child Care Setting

Your child has access to art experiences every day in my family child care program. These experiences include exploratory activities and more structured activities, and may  include drawing, painting, sculpting, and much more. Oftentimes, art activities get messy. I will do my best to keep your child’s clothes clean, but I ask that you dress your child in clothes that can get messy. I really appreciate this because it allows the children to truly engage in art experiences and reap all of the benefits. The art experiences that your child will engage in will focus on the process of art rather than their final products. If we place too much emphasis on the product, your child’s creativity cannot flourish. 

Art at home

Art experiences can happen at your home just as they do in the family child care program. You can create an area or areas for your child to create, display, and store their artwork and materials. You can use encouraging phrases to encourage your child’s focus on the process rather than product of their work. For example, you can say, “Tell me more about your drawing” rather than, “I like the fish you drew.” This encourages your child to think about how they feel about their work and it gets them to use their own words to describe their work. It is important to not only focus on your child’s work, but also to expose them to others’ artwork. You can talk about art in books, on display in your home, and at museums. 

Please let me know what questions you have about the creative experiences I provide. Together we can provide your child with art opportunities that will benefit their creativity and overall development!