Art appreciation forms an important part of many early childhood curriculum guidelines as a way to inspire and stimulate interest and understanding in a variety of art forms as well develop a visual vocabulary.

For this week’s Winter Themed curriculum we encourage you to snuggle up with your child one of these wintery days and take some time to develop those visual discriminatory and language skills, observing and discussing art using the VTS method described below.

VTS METHOD Utilising the “visual thinking method” developed by VTS (Visual Thinking Strategies) ask your child 3 simple questions:

1 -“What’s going on in this picture?”
2- “What do you see that makes you say that?”
3- “What more can we find?”

This amazing method develops observation skills, critical thinking skills, language skills and visual literacy skills. When we have utilised this method here in the preschool, even the 2 year olds had something to say about the art we were discussing!

Vocabulary is then also further developed as the teacher/parent repeats and elaborates on the child’s observations.