Tiny Sculptors and Weavers

Though my school system provides wonderful lesson plans for grades K - 12, we have none for preschool. Our preschools are federally funded programs that happen to be in our buildings. The extras that those programs get, such as music, art and p.e., are at the discretion of the school principals. So I teach whatever I think is appropriate for our tiniest students. The freedom to try my own ideas is appealing. Sometimes I feel as though I am just flying by the seat of my pants though.

I love doing sculpture with them. Kids, in general, don't get a lot of opportunity to use their hands and build in any way, so they really focus in when they get to work three dimensionally. I find that same thing in all grades. Sculpture, clay, and fiber lessons are big hits with the kids.


In this lesson, the kiddies were making sculptures with egg crates, cardboard tubes, and boxes. This group is very young, and as far as I could tell, the sculptures were all non-objective. They seemed to enjoy putting the objects together in any way that pleased them.

Sometimes, when trying to brainstorm what media to present to preschool, I use the ideas that the "big kids" are working on. The uppergrades are doing fiber arts right now. Fifth graders are weaving.


So I made tiny looms for the preschoolers and let them experiment with them.


I didn't give a lot of direction, rather, I let them try things on their own.


This wasn't the greatest lesson, but the kids were engaged. I'll have to figure out a way to build upon that next week.