Product Review

When children look at works of art they tell stories, share experiences, imagine, and explore. This book provides teachers with the skills, and freedom, to design rich and open-ended art experiences for young children. The author looks at the work of a variety of artists and offers guidance for using these artworks as taking-off points for conversations and creativity with a range of materials. She demonstrates that using fine art reproductions in the early childhood curriculum allows children to construct their own meanings, teaches diversity, fosters thinking skills, and encourages storytelling. The text includes lesson ideas, examples of activities, and photographs of children working and interacting with each other and with works of art. Based on the NAEYC and NAEA standards, this teacher-friendly resource provides numerous examples of open-ended arts experiences using reproductions of fine art from many different genres, periods, cultures, and sources. In addition, it provides art concepts to be used with children according to their developmental readiness and easy-to-implement lesson ideas designed to encourage teachers to create their own to fit in with their regular early childhood curriculum.