Joy of exploring – visual art methods for 1- & 2-year-old children in the early childhood education

Abstract

The thesis was commissioned by a private daycare in Finland. The objectives of this thesis were to plan, test out and evaluate visual art activities for the target group of 1- and 2-years old children in the daycare. The activities were planned to incorporate multisensory methods or versatile learning environments. In these activities the highlight was not certain end product but the process itself of getting familiar with different materials and learning new methods of creating art and most importantly enjoying and embracing the creativity that every child has in them.

Theoretical framework consisted literacy of related topics such as child’s development, culture, aesthetic & visual art education. The implementation part had 6 different activities and one repeated activity with few changes. The content analysis of the activities was done with a conceptual analyzing method. In this method the presence of transversal competences and learning areas in the Finnish national core curriculum were counted in the activities. The results showed that the activities consisted plenty of transversal competences and learning areas from the national core curriculum. The positive feedback from the children, their parents and the daycare that commissioned the thesis showed that the activities in this thesis were well suited for the target group.