ECE Teaching Tips

• With young children it is the process, and not the product that counts.
• Art is a time for exploration for young children. Do not be surprised if that cutting project you begin ends up with lots of little snips of paper (Remember it's the process, not the product!).
• Let the child glue snips of paper down or put them in an envelope to take home. Some may opt to throw them away.
• The following objects make great paint brushes:
  • sticks
  • old sanitized tooth brushes (Just soak them in bleach)
  • Q-tips
  • pipe cleaners
  • wire bread ties
  • the eraser end of pencils
  • fingers, etc.
• Find a good salt dough recipe and use it frequently. Molding the dough helps build fine muscles in the fingers and hands.
• Preschool teachers - The NAEYC publishes many good books on art for young children. Check them out.

• When you get your paints ready to put at the easel, you add a few drops of dish soap to your paints. Mix it up good. If you or a child gets paint on your hands or clothing it should come right off. Where I work we have tempera paint and we use this method all the time.

• Whenever I'm doing painting projects with my preschool class, I always put an old shower curtain down to cover the table...then the kids can paint their little hearts out without me having to worry about a messy clean up when we're through.

• Take small plastic sandwich bags and paint containers with lids. To make clean up easier, put a small plastic sandwich bag inside the paint container. Make sure the top of the bag hangs over the edge of the container. Snap the lid on to secure the plastic bag. Just pull out the plastic bag and throw away -- no need to wash the dried up paint out of the container.

• When directing behavior, always keep the expectations successful for each child. i.e. Some kids can wait successfully for 5 minutes while others can wait only one minute.
• Positive reinforcement is the key to behavior guidance as well as prevention.
• Think about what you could change in your environment, routine or even yourself before thinking about changing a child.
• Rest time means different things for different children. Some children don't/won't sleep. We need to respect that.
• Have fun yourself. If they see you having true fun they will too.
• Support your fellow staff. Give each other a boost once in a while.

• My daughter loves to paint. She is only 2 so, she can really make a mess. I fasten a plastic trash bag on the table with tape first and then, I tape down a large peice of white or construction paper for her to "go at it". She has fun and I have an easy time of mess clean up (I can use the trash bag afterwards too).

• To help my working parents feel apart of the class, I have them record their child's favorite story on tape, or video themselves reading the story. The tape is then play at a group time It's fabulous!!

• I ask the parents to save yogurt cups to be used for paint cups at the easel. When the children are finished painting, I just toss out the cups, making clean-up easy. I also ask the parents to save coffee can lids which are great for sponge painting. I just add a small amount of paint into the lid. I use clothes pins to hold the pieces of sponge so that the children's hands don't get too covered with paint.