Scrap-booking with Scissors

Art Word of the Week!

This week's art word is: Space! Space is "the total area defined by the size of the artist's paper or canvas" (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009, p. 368). There are two types of space. The first is known as positive space which means the content that occupies the space (i.e., paper) (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009). The second is negative space which signifies the empty areas that are not being occupied with content (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009). This relates to ECE because if children do not know how to effectively use the amount of space provided for them to do their work then most likely they have a difficult time organizing their thinking processes.

Now, moving on to my potential idea :)

First off, I would like to begin by stating that this week's art word relates to my idea of scrap-booking with scissors because children need to know how to organize their information and use the amount of space that the pages offer them.

Core components of the Activity:

http://scrapbooking.cc/

A simple booklet containing blank pages will be given to children as their scrapbook. Children can put anything of significance to them into their own scrapbook at any time they want. They can take pictures, draw, write, etc into their scrapbooks. The teacher does not need to tell the children when or what to put in their own personalized scrapbooks. Teachers will encourage children to share a part of their scrapbook that they feel comfortable discussing about with others. At the end of the year, children can take their scrapbooks home. The purpose of this is to help children organize their thoughts and ideas to effectively express themselves to others either verbally, artistically, and or through written means. 

This simply activity helps communicate personal identity and understanding of the world that surrounds children. Personal identity can be developed because the information that the children decided to put into their scrapbooks has an impact on them and it is usually a significant event that has helped children's growth. Children also gain an understanding of the world that surrounds them because once they begin to see their peers' scrapbooks, children see a sense of individuality and uniqueness among everyone. Lastly, children being to discover their peers' likes and dislikes and what is important to them.

Hope you all enjoyed this potential idea of mine. Maybe, one day, I'll be able to do something like this with children that I may work with.

Until next time!

~Kellz

References:

Schirrmacher, R., & Fox, E. J. (2009). Art & creative development for young children (6^th Ed.). Delmar, USA: Cengage Learning.