Kindergartners Spend Valuable Time Together in Art Studio

Kindergartners Spend Valuable Time Together in Art Studio

The Lower School art studio has been a joyful place this week! Kindergartners were together in the art studio for the first time in a year, working on a two-part exploration of their faces and capturing what they notice artistically.

“The first step is looking closely at your face and noticing the lines and shapes that you find there,” Lower and Upper School Art Teacher Laura Foster-Flynn said. “It's not about creating a likeness, but rather noticing what's there. Then the children use various loose part materials such as blocks and yarn to create a physical self-portrait.”

The final step is for students to look closely at the loose parts and capture those in a drawing.

“Finding details in the materials helps foster the skill of looking closely to see what is really there and not what you think is there,” Foster-Flynn said. “This practice helps grow observational and critical thinking skills and creates some lovely work in the process!”

Asking questions like 'What do you notice when you look closely at yourself? How can you share what you notice?’ is much easier in person, according to Foster-Flynn.

“You learn to value different voices and perspectives,” Foster-Flynn said. “Being in the same space while exploring the possibilities of art is important because of the exchange of ideas and collaborative thought that grows from a community of learners. This keeps us exploring possibilities and looking at things in new ways.”