I want to share with you how I keep my kids art supplies organized and handy. This is the children's art cabinet. This is one of their favorite spaces in the house. I love it because it is hidden away inside a cabinet in the dining room, at their reach, and easily accessible, yet closed up when company comes. I am a firm believer in having art supplies handy for the kids to use whenever they would like...it fosters that creativity! In our art cabinet there are always: crayons, glue sticks, tape, scissors, paper, colored pencils, pencils for writing, punches, name cards (see Dad?) for practicing writing, and note books of every size and shape. I use jars, wooden boxes, and baskets to store the supplies. I think that these art supplies being available for their use has helped with their fine motor skills such as writing & cutting. and they sure do love to create!
In the basement we store all of the fun (ie: messy) art supplies: paints, markers, dot art markers, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks, glitter, glue, and much much more. These sorts of crafts come out with Mama nearby to watch over them, unlike the everyday art supplies they can use whenever they'd like. I want to get those creative juices flowing!
How do you store your child's art supplies? What's in your art cabinet? How do you foster creativity? Tell me! I'm always looking for new ideas!
5 comments:
We have an Art trunk, beautifully finished by my talented sister-in-law. Far less organized than yours, but it doesn't seem to hold my kiddos back!
Each kid has their own pencil box that includes a glue stick, scissors, crayons, markers, stamps, pencil, and pencil sharpener. They're stored in the kitchen in an easily accessible cabinet near my desk. Along side their boxes is a larger set of markers & colored pencils. Lastly, they each have "coloring book" drawers in their rooms that house construction paper, stickers, sketch pads, coloring books, activity books, etc. It seems to work out well b/c they get into these things daily. The messier stuff is stored on a top shelf in one of their closets. That includes paint & paint supplies, craft supplies as well as playdoh. I agree that having the crafty supplies handy helps them w/ fine motor skills, imaginations, etc. Bring on the crafts...especially on hot summer days when going outside has to be limited.
Just today, we painted a tea set for Maggie. Of course, matthew is less colorful than her, painting his tea cups solid black. Blech! Maggie's is a lovely pattern of green and yellow. :-) We'll be baking them in the oven tomorrow.
Library Mom...it's only organized because I snapped this picture just minutes after cleaning the cabinet!
Anna...I can't wait to see this tea set! What a cool craft for a hot summer day. I used to use seperate containers for each child as well, but it wasn't working for us, so we combined everything. This has been good for them, they have been pretty good at sharing everything.
We have two huge rubbermaid tubs-one is full of crayons of all sizes and the other is full of pens, pencils and markers...all of their paper and coloring books/construction paper/etc is in a rubbermaid drawer unit in our dining room so they can pull out what they need anytime. Messy stuff stays in my craft cabinet. There are some days the boys will do nothing but draw all day long and I love that! I put a wire up on the wall in their room so that they can display all of their artwork and change it out anytime they want to (just used thumb tacks, floral wire and some clothes pins to hold the artwork). They love being able to switch it out whenever they want to...
I was going to comment on the serious organization of your art cabinet as well....I'd be embarrassed for anyone to see ours most days, it's a very organized mess ;)
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