The Material
Cards
Seven materials, and how we introduce each one to three to six year olds: as a character, a story or a little action they can copy.
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Every tool gets introduced as a character
We do not hand children a list of rules. The tool becomes a ballerina, a dinosaur, an alligator or a fish, and children copy the actions. The way you hold a brush becomes a story they remember.
Card 01
The brush
A ballerina, or a dinosaur
Introduce the brush as a ballerina who needs to stand on her tippy toes, never on her bottom. Or introduce it as a dinosaur who needs a drink of water.
Our ballerina stands on her tippy toes, never on her bottom.
Our dinosaur needs a drink of water.
For watercolours, we swivel our ballerina.
We tiptoe in the paint, and then we rinse.
Card 02
Scissors
Alligator hands
Children make their alligator hands and go chomp chomp.
Make your alligator hands.
Chomp, chomp, chomp.
Card 03
The glue stick
The glue stick has a little hat
Try using blue glue so the children can see where it goes. Talk about the glue stick having a little hat. When the hat comes off, we wind it up just a little bit, not too much.
The glue stick has a little hat.
We wind it up just a little bit.
Dot, dot, dot. We don’t need a lot.
Make sure you put his hat back on, or he gets cold!
Card 04
PVA glue
Drippy, droopy glue
It is drippy glue. The brush lives in the glue pot, and we do not need water for this one. We choose with our eyes what we want to put the glue on.
It is drippy, droopy glue.
The brush lives in the glue pot. We do not need water for this one.
Choose with your eyes: where do you want the glue?
Dot, dot, dot, I don’t need a lot.
Brush, brush, brush, up and down.
Card 05
Oil pastels
Little cuties that make your hands dirty
They make your hands a little bit dirty, and that is okay. That is the beauty of it. They want pressure, and you can use them two ways.
They make our hands a little bit dirty, and that’s okay. That’s the beauty of it.
Pastels want pressure.
Use them on their tippy toes, or on their bellies.
Card 06
Playdough
Squishy, and you do not need to say much
Playdough is the one where you do not really need to say much. Put it between your hands and go alligator, alligator, up and down. Then turn your hands and go fish, fish, fish, and it swims to make different shapes.
Alligator, alligator, up and down.
Now turn your hands: fish, fish, fish.
It swims to make different shapes.
Card 07
The paint pot
Keeping our paint safe
The paint pot is there to keep our paint safe. Talk about using just one brush per colour, and how we wipe our brush. Then turn it into a story.
The paint pot keeps our paint safe.
One brush for each colour.
We wipe our brush.
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If this was useful
The cards are the tools. The Method is the teaching.
The Material Cards show you how we introduce a tool. The Mini Ivy Method tells you what to teach with it: the ten week skill sequence, the forty or so sentences that do the actual teaching, what to say when a child says I can’t or rips it up, and how to plan a term from scratch. It is the programme we run five days a week, written down.
See The Mini Ivy Method
Co-Founder, Mini Ivy Art Studio. I studied teaching at Flinders University and spent about eight years teaching reception to year two before starting Mini Ivy. We run structured creative development sessions for three to six year olds, five days a week, at our studio in Torrensville, Adelaide. Everything here is what we actually do on those days, not theory.