I stand with Maria Montessori... When you want a successful learning child, you need a well organised, trustful environment. Will say, everything needs to be in order, children need to know where tools and materials are. I repeat myself from previous posts, but it is important for students to have an organized art room.
Actually sometimes I get a little annoyed when people say things like, it's only the art room, it doesn't matter... because it matters... not during the process of creating art, but before
First of all, my art supplies are open to access for every students, except these materials that might be harmful like eg cutter knives, etc or storage supplies. Will say, I don't allow students to find their things in a hidden cupboard. And they know that everything has its place.
As younger the students are as more structure they need.
Have all materials needed already visible and prepared, and mostly even already on their desks. Back to back teaching can be challenging at times, and therefore try to plan classes on the same day using the same medium.
For little ones I have trays ready with their necessary materials. The benefit of working like that, you see when something is missing after your lesson (glue stick lids... my nightmares)
At the end of the lesson I only have to check the tray and put new things on.
So now your question might be: in a time where children loose all the ability to be responsible for their own actions, because everyone does everything for them, do we really want to support this?
Well,,, yes and no. By preparing their materials I'm not taking away their responsibility of creating a masterpiece, they still need to make sure they have everything still on the tray after the lesson, and I'll hold them accountable.
But when everything is ready for them they don't have the excuse why they can't. have you ever seen the students running around, can't settle because things are missing, other students are running around and disturbing each other... This is why "prepared surroundings" as Maria Montessori called it are important. This is the way to bring a child to a state of polarization of attention, where it is able to create and work.
Maybe in one of my next posts I'll talk more about Maria Montessori....
Everybody is an artist... Really!