Spaces for Kids to Create
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I don’t know about you but I’m always adapting my organizational systems for my kids and their ages. Especially when it comes to writing and art – which go hand in hand, don’t you think? At ages six and nine, I’ve given the girls work spaces and easy access to supplies. Not only that, I try to display as much of their writing and art as possible.
Spaces for Kids to Create
A large desk with plenty of room to spread out, a cozy lamp, easy access to supplies.
A folding table for ongoing projects in the dining room. The kids are art journaling today.
Supplies
Scissors, glue, tape, and odds and ends. We use Bare Books for writing.
Stencils (Usborne,) stickers, Tell Me a Story cards (eBoo,) and lots of different paper.
Stickers and stamps (behind the stickers.) An empty canvas waits to be painted.
Markers, colored pencils, pencils, crayons.
Movable tub for ongoing projects. In this case, art journals.
Displays
Bulletin boards work for us to display writing. (A Christmas play shown above.)
And work well for art, too.
I love putting the girls’ art in a mat and frame. I need to change this more often but no matter when they created the pieces, artwork is my favorite way to decorate.
For more ideas on displaying your children’s artwork, visit my blog post for Imagine Toys – 10 Ways to Display Your Child’s Art.
How do you plan spaces for your children to create?
TRY:Â Zentangle for Kids, Art Journaling for Kids, Art Journal Ideas for Kids, Personal Narrative Examples, Coding for Kids
Your spaces are so beautiful… and neat. Are your kids good about putting their supplies away when they’re done? My daughter struggles with this – she is a mad mad creator, and then her ideas carry her off to the next activity, leaving a wonderful mess of art supplies in her wake. Great post!
oh, no – they’re terrible at picking up and like your daughter are mad creators, getting out everything we own!
Thanks! This is timely for us because the art stuff and the stuff-stuff just seems to take over every flat space throughout our house! I like your basket/bin idea for markers/glue/scissors stuff.
I ended up putting 4 dozen rolls of colorful duct tape in bins in the playroom after purging most of the toys my kids have outgrown. So much duct tape! Takes up so much space!! And my oldest is an artist so we have so much art supplies that it’s hard to keep it all organized.
What do you do for storage for large art paper? Poster board-ish size? We have tons of that. One of my friends has some kind of huge table with drawers but I think the drawers are not big enough for that size paper. I am keeping behind the Tantsu Chest in the Dining Room which is not my favorite spot to store it.
This is cool. My parents made an art gallery for me and my sister too. I like it!
Oh, this is inspiring, Melissa! Thank you. Reminds me of Jennifer Hallissy’s work (http://thewritestart.typepad.com/the_write_start/2009/01/young-writers-workshop.html). I really need to figure out how to reorganize in a way that encourages my daughter’s creative spirit, and get much better about displays.
It’s always a bit of a challenge, isn’t it? Knowing you, you’ll think of something brilliant!
What happened to Jennifer? I haven’t seen any recent blog posts from her. Her books is terrific.
Your kids have a great writing/art space! I also like to make sure all of our creating materials are well-organized and within easy reach of my girls.
thanks, Susan. Feel free to upload any photos of your space to Facebook! I’d love to see your space.