Design lessons for kids
1. Design lessons for kids, why is it important?
2. Books and Media – Our Recommendations for Design lessons for kids
3. How to teach to your kids Design?
4. Links and Free resources on “Design lessons for kids”
1. Design lessons for kids, why is it important?
Teaching creative processes as design activities requests special approach of the teacher. The kids can learn by supplying set pieces to them to imitate or we can create situations in which kids develop self-confidence, working on basis of their own experience, extending their understanding, discovering, satisfying their curiosity and gaining pleasure. Like most views on design, the arguments and suggestions set down here can be challenged.
The philosophy of teaching design can be stated simply. You must think primarily in terms of design materials and teach long-term familiarity with these materials so that the kids can master them and use them to express their own life experiences. Always try to have the children feel so comfortable and confident with these materials that they are willing to use them to speak about their innermost thoughts and feelings.
2. Books and Media – Our Recommendations for Design lessons for kids
Recommendations based on our parenting experience and the site’s visitors opinions. For info and reviews click on each item.
3. How to teach to your kids Design?
To teach kids design you need table and shelve a drying rack, a sink, and a bulletin board. In the design room, you strive to create a working environment, an accepting atmosphere in which the kids can feel safe, comfortable, and emotionally secure. Their design experience must be exploratory, unthreatening and fun.
The program covers six basic design areas: collage, painting, clay, drawing, printmaking, and construction. For each of these, I order materials that are satisfying to the kids’ eye and stimulating to the touch. You must start with an open-ended exploration of the materials. This exploration in the beginning is much more important than seeking any specific results.
You may feel terribly burdened by thinking about how they want things to look and by trying to march the kids step-by-step toward that end. Try doing just the opposite; be more interested in the process itself and in having the kids connect with it in a personal way. By the time the children are six or seven, they are becoming skilled in handling the materials, and this helps them to express themselves powerfully.
You must be concerned about protecting the kids’ clothing while they work and tell the kids they cannot enter the design room unless they have their sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Keep each design material separate, so that it can be clearly understood and give special attention to drawing, painting, and modeling the figure. A certain flexibility in planning is always necessary so keep a record of which child does what as a way of monitoring his or her growth. Try to extend each material as long as possible, however, to give the kids a chance to truly explore it in depth; their investigations may require many weeks, months, and even years. This approach produces a rich, personal design, an expression of something the kids have explored deeply and to which they have applied their newly acquired skills.
Encourage and respect each kid’s way of working and let each one work at his or her own pace. (Kids are always comfortable at their own level.) Make sure that the things they do in design don’t overwhelm them that the children, with their differing abilities, can find success in whatever they do and intervene as little as possible, while setting clearly defined limits as to what use of materials is possible in a given class. Try to keep out of the work so that it can come totally from the heart and mind of the child who produces it.
I never feel that something a kid has done is really awful; although I might feet it’s slapdash because he hasn’t been paying enough attention to his work, but has been yakking to his neighbor about baseball for ten minutes instead. I would intervene then because I’d expect him to be more involved in what he’s doing.
How an adult responds to the kid’s design work is extremely significant. It’s important that a grown-up not project his own ideas onto the work. Asking a four- or five-year-old what his painting or drawing represents can be confusing. The teacher must strive to understand the kids’ aims and can accomplish this by paying close attention to what is happening. Many teachers ask the kids to explain what they’re doing. Try not to do this because the work itself will tell me loud and clear if I look at it carefully. Active and close observation helps one get in touch with the kids.
4. Links and Free resources on “Design lessons for kids”
PS. Send us your story on how and what you “learned with your kid” and the great time you had together. You’ll find it here next time you visit us!