Lewis is in our toddler room. This attractive picture shows how he has been given the opportnity to experiement with colour and design. He selected his own materials and laid out his picture and it is proudly displayed on the wall for friends and visitors to enjoy.

Patti used a simple tool, a glue spreader, to create her picture. Manipulating objects is a key skill for toddlers to learn.

Amelie is developing a whole range of different skills at this age. Activities like sticking are excellent for practising manual dexterity.

The pictures here show the results of an art acitivity that the Mungojerries did recently. These children vary in age from 24 to 36 months. The aim of the activity was to put together a collage of a bears face from pieces of pre-cut paper.

Following a brief description of the aim, the children were allowed to freely interpret the idea. The results show that during this interesting stage of development, children learn about self image and can relate the idea of eyes, ears, nose and mouth into a 2 dimensional form.

From this activity, the key workers at Rum Tum Tugger’s Nursery, Harlow learn where children are in developing these skills and plan to include other activities to promote self awareness. These may include games with mirrors, opportunities to look at and talk about photos of themselves and other people, and traditional singing games like “Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” .

At present, this falls into the Birth to Three Matters Framework, A Strong Child – A Sense of Belonging. Later this year, the new Early Years Foundation Stage comes into play and these same ideals fall within the Learning and Development Theme and the Physical Development Aspect. 

Painting with the under two’s is more than just an art activity. Within the Birth to Three Matters Framework, children get the chance to manipulate tools. At this stage, they use a technique called “dobbing” where the brush is simply used just to transfer the paint onto the paper in a splodge.

Painting enables us to encourage the children to name and differentiate colours.

The close level of supervision during these activities allows for strong relationships to form between children and their carers which is fundamental to having a happy time at nursery.

All effort is rewarded by words of encouragement and praise and a child’s sense of worth is fostered as the picture is shown to friends and family or added to a display.

Gabe’s beautiful sponge painted duck is part of a wall display.

The children have been singing counting songs like Five Little Ducks and using these to inspire their art and craft activities.

 Counting songs encourage the children to make mathematical connections through music, part of the Birth to Three Matters Framework.