Art + Design + Architecture

Is it important for children to take up art?  What skills will children learn from art? Should we allow our kids to have a free will in doing their art pieces or should we be guiding them along?

Ricco started structured art learning since a young age of 2+.  The only reason I enrolled him in art class then is really to allow him to have something to do while cultivating social skills; playing alongside other children and also to fine tune his motor skills.  There is no expectation for him to perform.  For me, its really another avenue for play.  In class, he is engaged in guided drawing/painting/craft and at home, I allow him to doddle/draw/paint on his own, at his own freewill.  There is no expectation for him to draw a train that looks like train; a car which looks like a car.  Its really the explanation and how he see the art piece that he had created thats important.  I believe this had helped cultivate his interest for drawing/painting and even writing.  He now associate drawing and painting to fun and play.

In the year that Ricco take art lessons, I realised that art greatly helps to improve a young kid's motor skills.  It taps into children's creativity and imagination. It helps children make sense of the world and it is certainly an avenue for kids to bring out their loves; be it dinosaurs or cars.  Having said this, I highly encourage art to be one of the 1st learning ground for children

I was searching for a new class to send Ricco to as he grows out of his current junior art class and there are really no slots suitable for him in the current school at a higher level.  I came across something which caught my attention : art + design + architecture.  I like this concept for I think that art, design and architecture are all really about creativity, spacial awareness and also imagination. 

He attended his 1st lesson today and I find it extremely interesting.  The teacher gave the very young kids a 10mins slide show of different art pieces. explaining to the kids what some art pieces may represent, what the artists' thoughts were at the time of concocting those pieces etc.  This is a good first level introduction to visual and design literacy.  The kids were then asked to use different stencils and paint their own art piece.  There are stencils of dinosaurs, fairies, robot, flowers etc.  Be it overlap, side-by-side, above one another, the kids are given the freewill to design their own piece while discussing with the instructor. 

Ricco came up with the below after a long 2 hours painting and discussing.  He refused to use any other stencils other than dinosaur.  His only request throughout the entire session is to paint 1 more dinosaur.  He asked for 1 more again after 1 more is drawn.  He ended up with 15 dinosaurs (so he says).  He entitled his painting : Dinosaur Land.  And the explanation behind this painting : moving dinosaurs running towards the left... in dinosaur land.

Art Piece entitled : Dinosaur Land

He is so happy and takes so much pride in this painting that he simply refused to leave it in school for it to dry up to bring home the next week.  I ended up carrying this painting (right side up) throughout dinner and shopping the entire evening!