"He's a duck, and that's his house."

"It's my mom, and she's happy."

"I just found all the orange things and glued them on to the pumpkin I drew."

"This is a yarn girl, and here's her house, and her pets!"

I absolutely LOVE this piece. Three first graders spent the better part of an hour working on this, then proudly showed it to me, "This is a dragon. Here's the wings, and there's the tail, here's his head, and there's fire coming out!"

Fiber Arts

Thanks to some generous parent donations, we've got plenty of fabric to create pillows, bags, stuffies, and more.

"This is a pillow for my bear, so he can be comfy."

"It's a purse with a pocket. I'm going to make one for my sister next."

"The fabric wasn't big enough, so I sewed pieces together to make a big pillow."

"This is a purse for my sister. She loves putting things in bags! It has lining and pockets inside. It took a while to make, about three art days."

Spooky Art

"This is a spooky race car track. And a ghost is trying to knock some of the cars out. And the fence shoots out bomb ghostes. And the haunted house has ghosts trying to knock the people out of the cars. I made it with paper and glue. It was hard to make the haunted house stand up."

"It's halloween night, that's why it's black."

"It's Frankenstein, I used crayons and watercolor."

"This is a haunted house, but it's not too scary!"

"The skeleton is wearing a hat and he's knocking on the door."

"It's my halloween book!"

"These are two skeletons, playing basketball, one is red, for the U[niversity of Utah] and one is blue for BYU."

This is a sampling of some kindergartner's chalk pastel drawings.

"She's a girl monster, and she's pretty!"

"It's a cat, only she's lots of different colors!"

created at the collage center

"It's a apron for my sister's barbie, I sewed it, but then I glued on the pocket. She's going to be happy that I made it for her."

"Look teacher! It's a street that curves, and there are cars there, too!"

"Those birds are happy. And it's raining."

"Well, I saw this material and I glued it to be dresses."

"This took me two whole art times! But it's a purse and I can use it all the time now!"

"Well, this is just the paper towel that we were using with the watercolors. And then I found shapes on it, and look: these are seals and baby seals, and clouds. And this is their house."

"I just was drawing, it's a zipline, and it's fun, 'cause you go real fast."

"It was so hard to make the house glue together like that. And there's some glue on the outside, but it's okay, right? Because you told me that when it dries it will be see through. And then I drew the other houses on the street."

Appreciating children's artwork

"These are pandas, and they have on hats! That one is hanging upside down, from the bars."

It can be difficult for adults (including myself) to appreciate the seemingly random art pieces children create when they are self-directed. We are accustomed to seeing adult-driven art projects assembled by children. But we must not confuse the two distinct activities. Adult-driven projects are fine, in fact, they help children learn to follow directions, and the results can be quite charming, and pleasing to our adult eyes.

The child-created pieces, though, those are my favorite. The younger children, especially, are not burdened with the self-criticism of the older, wiser (?) kids. These younger kids create with purpose, with vision, with joy. 

"It's a rocket ship, see? That is the space where the guy, the driver, you know, the space guy sits. And over here is an escape hatch, so he can get a way quick. These things are the drivers for it."

"It's a tower, like Rapunzel's"

"This is a farm! That's me, and that's my mom, or maybe my grandma. Anyway, we're at a farm together, you know the kind with a red building where the chickens live. In kindergarten, I got to see a real farm!"

"Okay, so I made this doghouse, and it was hard to make this part stay up. And look! The dog's looking out the window, but if you turn it around, you can see the back of him through the other window. Only, this doghouse is too small for a real dog, unless it was teeny teeny tiny. Once, I saw a lady at a store, and she had a dog that could fit in her purse! 'cept I think that this is smaller than her purse. But! I have a toy dog that can fit in this little house."

"Ha ha. This is funny, know why? Look, there's a picture of a baby's head right there. So, this is like a big tall guy, only he has a little baby head. Yeah, that makes me laugh."

"Oh, okay, so first I was drawing shapes, like we were talking 'bout today. I drew rectangles, and then those triangles, and I used different colors too. And now, it looks like a castle, almost! But maybe it's a big house. I seen big houses before, have you teacher? Yeah, those live up in the mountains, those houses. No, I think this is a castle, and I can live there and be the king and fight the bad guys. Nope! No girls in this castles, or princesses just boys [talking to the cluster of girls gathered round to admire his castle] 'cept my mom, and maybe my sister. My grandma could come to visit too. But NO OTHER GIRLS!"

"I'm just cutting lots of shapes, and making a design with them."

Collage!

These first graders were happily gluing for the entire hour!

"It was hard to make the yarn stick, so I pushed it down hard. And that's a picture of a watch like my uncle wears. The pink yarn is part of the dragonfly's tail, and the other yarn is to hang up the picture in my room."

"I used a hole punch, well, different hole punches. A regular one, and then ones that did shapes."

"This is the street, and the green things are houses. I live there, and I put my friend's house next door. 'Cept she doesn't really live next door, I just pretended. And these green poofyish things are the trees."

"I glued, and cut, and I drawed on stuff too."

"Look teacher! I made it stand up!"

"Okay, well, this is a boat, and it's supposed to go on the river, but then a bad guy tooked it away. So then, I made it so the good guys could get it back, 'cause there's a secret tunnel to it."

"I used the pastels to draw pictures of flowers, then I glued them on this paper. This orange paper is like the sun."