Less is More? 9 am wonder studio

Bev Bos, one of my heroes in the teaching world, is adamant that children (especially young children) need A LOT of things...  They need to use A LOT of glue, A LOT of Paint, A LOT of clay, etc...

The point is not to be wasteful... 

the point is Creativity...

I remember when my daughter was around 2 years old, I got a package of google eyes and couldn't wait to give her a couple of eyes to use with her art work...


Well, after giving her 2, she wanted more, so I gave her 2 more, she pushed my hand away and reached for the entire package... I decided to just go with it and gave her about 100 google eyes.


She made one of my all time favorite pictures (or sculptures, I should say), she sorted all the big eyes and then layered and layered the small eyes into this mound of eyes...


She was so deliberate, so focused, and so creative...


If I had stopped her at 2 eyes or even 4, it would have stopped her art process and she would have quickly lost interest...


check it out, below...

Sometimes when we limit children's use of materials, it is just that...Limiting...


It stops their creative process...


It causes a loss of interest...

That is why you often hear me say in class...  


Do you need more?


You can use the whole bottle!


Keep the paint comin!

Typically, only a few of the kids will squeeze an entire bottle of glue...  


A lot of kids don't seem to need or want A LOT...


That's why it's not a big deal when that one kid does need A LOT, 


just go with it...

First of all, it means they are interested...


and 


2nd, the creative juices are flowing...


Most often you will NOT end up with anything that is going to be frame worthy...

Most often you will end up with a Real Big MESS!


But...


You know in that child's mind, something was learned...

How can they learn that Less is More, until they have used MORE?

And let's just be honest here, Sometimes Less is just...


well...


LESS!!