What art and craft work does your 3 year old do at Nursery?

[onlytheone]

Have been niggled for a while about the lack of creativity with art work at Nursery. They just seem to paint on pre-printed pictures (animals usually) or scribble in crayon on blank pieces of paper. Sometimes they stick crepe paper to shapes. Think there could be a better and more inspiring range of activities.

My dd's pre-school is excellent. They make cards, paint stick and draw with a wide variety of materials. They have also used clay to make candle sticks as a christmas theme and over easter made little easter baskets to put little eggs in. Perhaps you could drop into conversation some of the things that your LO likes to do and ask if there is any chance of the nursery doing a similar actvivity?

DSs nursery do loads, although I don't get much sent home unless it's rained that day cos he's not that fussed unless it's gluing. Is your LO keen...?

They do all the usual stuff and try to follow themes (seasons, halloween, fireworks, Christmas, etc).

Loads of stuff

Gluing used to be one of ds's favourite activities, his little face when Father Christmas brought him his own tub of glue one year !

We've had :-
Easter basket, easter flower with egg box centre and petals, daffodil made of green straw stalk and yellow card petals , animal shapes with sand stuck on and painted, rice and pasta glued on and painted, candle wax pictures painted over to reveal the magic picture underneath, mosaic pictures (lots of gluing for that one), fabric pieces glued on to create an outfit on the little man/woman shape, bubble pictures, glitter pictures, stuck on leaf pictures, hand/finger painting pictures, a card to celebrate anything you can think of including chinese new year, eye shape where they looked in the mirror to see what colour their eyes were and then coloured in the iris bit appropriately, lovely green/brown tree shape with little bits of scrunched up tissue paper glued on for blossom, glittery red valentine hearts with hanging loop, painted pasta strung on wool to make a necklace, a noisy shaker made from a cardboard loo roll, snowy pictures with cotton wool glued on, sponge printing shape pictures of night-time animals and daytime animals, calendar with photo of child on surrounded by whatever they fancied drawing or gluing on (excellent gift for doting granny that one was), oh I could go on and on.

Plus every Christmas we got a hand or footprint done in gold colour paint on a black background with name and year on plus a hanging loop to go on the tree. Lovely keepsakes.

We do pay a fortune in nursery fees though !

Oooh, did I mention the baking they do too ?

I suppose it's not arts and crafts though but IMHO 3 year olds love it and they get to eat the results for tea.

We have craft stuff out every day. There's always drawing/writing stuff - paper with either pens, pencils or crayons, or combination of those. Sometimes chalks and either sugar paper or blackboards.

In addition, we have paint out every day. Usually that's just 'free painting', but sometimes it's to paint something specific, for example a pre-cut shape or outline, or something big to go on our display boards. We have a variety of paints - block paints, pre-mixed paint, powder paint we mix up etc.
Sometimes we let the children mix their own paints, they like that. We also do sponge painting, bubble painting, marble painting etc.

Virtually every day we also have another craft activity, often a cutting/sticking type activity. Again, sometimes it's junk modelling where they do what they want (although today we got them to make boats out of the boxes etc, then later tested them to see which floated). Sometimes it's a definite 'thing' they're making. So on Friday last week we made spiders from paper plates etc.

We do different craft activities for all the usual themed days, Christmas, Easter, fireworks, seasons etc.

We use a massive range of materials, both special craft things and also household objects. We get lots of things from our local scrap store, all the odd bits and bobs that come in useful for all sorts!

And our parents don't have to pay a fortune in fees!

To be honest, there's no excuse for a nursery not doing different crafts, there are so many ideas out there for free on the internet and in books. Our staff have also got lots of ideas from training days they've been on, either ideas from workshops they've done or just from chatting and sharing with other pre-school workers.

thanks everyone for you responses. I agree Portonovo that there are plenty of ideas available. The stuff DD does at a playgroup (£1 per session) is far more imaginative and varied than nursery. I do wonder how the 4 1/2 hours are acutally used on the mornings she attends. My DD does love making thing and just being involved. Wondered if there is a difference in what they do at different ages as Nursery separates age groups so 3+ in one room and rising fours in another. I hope they are no saving the more exciting stuff till she is nearer 4!!!