Discover mark-making by chance, noticing, for instance, that trailing a finger through spilt juice changes it.
The way young babies respond when they touch or feel something such as warm milk, or a fluffy toy.
Talk to young babies about the sensations of different materials they feel, whether they are cold or warm, smooth or soft.
Make a basket of things each baby likes to explore. One may prefer all the squashy things such as sponges, soft toys or balls, another may prefer crinkly, noisy things.
8-20 Months
Explore and experiment with a range of media using whole body.
Exploring cornflour and paint - In a nursery, a young toddler is deeply involved in exploring cornflour, then joins another child and the practitioner in exploring the paint.[transcript]
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What babies like to make marks in and the tools they use to make them.
How babies move their whole bodies as they explore media.
Encourage babies to make marks and to squeeze and feel media such as paint, gloop (cornflour and water), dough and bubbles.
Place big sheets of plastic or paper on the floor so that babies can be near or crawl on to it to make marks, or add materials using large motor movements, sprinkling, throwing or spreading paint, glue, torn paper or other materials.
16-26 Months
Create and experiment with blocks, colour and marks.
The processes which children engage in as they explore and experiment with media.
Accept wholeheartedly young children's creations and help them to see them as something unique and valuable.
Make notes detailing the processes involved in a child's creations, to share with parents.
22-36 Months
Begin to combine movement, materials, media or marks.
The inventive ways in which children add, or mix media, or wallow in a particular experience.
Be interested in the children's creative processes and talk to them about what they mean to them.
Choose unusual or interesting materials and resources that inspire exploration such as textured wall coverings, raffia, string, translucent paper or water-based glues with colour added.
30-50 Months
Begin to be interested in and describe the texture of things.
Explore colour and begin to differentiate between colours.
Differentiate marks and movements on paper.
Use their bodies to explore texture and space.
Understand that they can use lines to enclose a space, and then begin to use these shapes to represent objects.
Create 3D structures.
Begin to construct, stacking blocks vertically and horizontally, making enclosures and creating spaces.
Children's responses to different textures, for example, touching sections of a texture display with their fingers, or feeling it with their cheeks to get a sense of different properties.
Children's growing interest in and use of colour as they begin to find differences between colours.
How one child spontaneously makes lots of 'spiral' marks and movements on their paper, while others may imitate each other's movements.
How children begin to describe the objects they represent.
The patterns and structures children talk about, make or construct.
Make time and space for children to express their curiosity and explore the environment using all of their senses.
Talk to a child about images or effects that they see, such as the effect of light hitting a shiny piece of paper.
Talk to children about colours they like and why they like them.
Demonstrate and teach skills and techniques associated with the things children are doing, for example, show them how to stop the paint from dripping or how to balance bricks so that they will not fall down.
Introduce children to a wide range of music, painting and sculpture.
Encourage children to take time to think about painting or sculpture that is unfamiliar to them before they talk about it or express an opinion.
Make suggestions and ask questions to extend children's ideas of what is possible, for example, "I wonder what would happen if...".
Support children in thinking about what they want to make, the processes that may be involved and the materials and resources they might need, such as a photograph to remind them what the climbing frame is like.
Introduce vocabulary to enable children to talk about their observations and experiences, for example, 'smooth', 'shiny', 'rough', 'prickly', 'flat', 'patterned', 'jagged', 'bumpy', 'soft' and 'hard'.
Provide a wide range of materials, resources and sensory experiences to enable children to explore colour, texture and space. Document the processes children go through to create their own 'work'.
Provide a place where work in progress can be kept safely. Talk to children about where they can see models and plans in the environment, such as at the local planning office, in the town square, or at the new apartments down the road.
40-60+ Months
Explore what happens when they mix colours.
Choose particular colours to use for a purpose.
Understand that different media can be combined to create new effects.
Experiment to create different textures.
Create constructions, collages, painting and drawings.
Use ideas involving fitting, overlapping, in, out, enclosure, grids and sun-like shapes.
Work creatively on a large or small scale.
Explore colour, texture, shape, form and space in two or three dimensions.
The inventive ways in which children mix colours.
The decisions that children make about colour choices.
How children experiment to create new effects and textures, for example, by drizzling glue over wool, or squirting pools of colour on to paper.
How children combine their creative skills and imagination to create something new, such as when a small group of children are using large blocks to represent their experience of a visit to the ferry port. After much discussion and negotiation they make arrows for the one-way system and a variety of signs and symbols. They tell the stories of people who will go on the ferry and wonder about whether one family will get there on time.
The numerous ways in which children create and construct, and how their explorations lead to new understandings about media.
Making a model with glue - In reception class, a practitioner supports the child in fixing boxes together. [transcript]
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Help children to gain confidence in their own way of representing ideas.
Talk to children about ways of finding out what they can do with different media and what happens when they put different things together such as sand, paint and sawdust.
Help children to develop a problem-solving approach to overcome hindrances as they explore possibilities that media combinations present. Offer advice and additional resources as appropriate.
Alert children to changes in properties of media as they are transformed through becoming wet, dry, flaky or fixed. Talk about what is happening, helping them to think about cause and effect.
Provide resources for mixing colours, joining things together and combining materials, demonstrating where appropriate.
Introduce pieces of wood, stone, rock or seaweed for children to feel and discover.
Provide children with opportunities to use their skills and explore concepts and ideas through their representations.
Have a 'holding bay' where 2D and 3D models and works can be retained for a period for children to enjoy, develop, or refer to.
Block play - In a nursery school, a small group of children work together on a large construction, and afterwards their work-in-progress is cordoned off, showing that their achievement is respected. [transcript]
You can watch the video via modem or slow / fast / superfast broadband connections. If you are behind a network firewall, why not click here to view a flash file of the video. You do need to have the flash plugin.
