Art at Home: Supply Centers

This post is about how to put together your supply centers and how to guide children in using them and maintaining them. The top goal here is to allow children to be relatively independent in their creative work. As a pre-service teacher, I was introduced to Teaching For Artistic Behaviors or TAB, a learner-directed approach to teaching art. As a studio artist, an art teacher, and now as a parent, I still live and breathe the basic tenets of this method. First, this method is centered on the question, “What do artists do?” as well as the notion that the Child is the Artist and the Classroom is the Child’s Studio. I no longer teach in a classroom, but I still maintain my belief in the importance of child-directed creative work. It requires a shift in our adult brains to accept that children’s artwork may not always fit our vision; however, in a scaffolded, thoughtful environment with accessible supplies, I have seen confidence and skills flourish in my students and in my own children. If a life-long love of creativity and an appreciation for art is something you want to foster in your children, I highly recommend researching and implementing these methods. Here is just one very simple take on how you could go about implementing the use of supply centers in your home art space.

The quest for the perfect bin can be all-consuming and expensive…or maybe I’m the only one with this bin obsession! At any rate, when I came across these a few years ago, they changed my life. I used them in my classroom for paint storage especially as they keep little cups of paint from drying out. They are also great for storing in progress work. At home, I realized they would be perfect for creating little mini supply centers that can easily be stored in our art cupboard. They would also stack nicely on an art cart if you like to have a mobile art studio in your home. Originally, I created a bin for drawing, collage, and painting. As my kids started using them, we adapted it to fit their interests a bit more. We also have a larger bin full of cool recycled stuff like interesting containers, packing material, and cardboard pieces. Every couple of months we sort through the boxes and freshen them up or change out supplies to keep them interesting. For a list of supply ideas for each center visit my previous post.