Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/handprint-turkeys-step-aside/5024452/
When my older son was three years old, I went to an “art show” at his nursery school. When I arrived, I was greeted with wall after wall of identical projects. I stopped in front of a display labeled “Whooo is it?” and stared at the rows of perfectly assembled owls, each of which had a lift-up flap with a child’s picture underneath. Families were supposed to guess which one their child had made, but they were all exactly the same. How was I supposed to be able to tell which one was his?
As an early childhood educator, I had a gut feeling that something was off here. Was this what preschool art was supposed to look like? Where was the creativity and self-expression?
That was the beginning of my questioning around how young children should experience art. As cute as some of these projects were, I could not imagine calling them art. My research around the topic introduced me to the terms “product art” and “process art.”
Process art made more sense to me, and a lot of people in the field have long agreed that it is best for young children. In her 1994 book, Preschool Art: ...