Wonder Art Workshop

This is a great book, full of brilliant creative ideas to with children. There are lots of new projects and all the materials are accessible including many free from the natural world. The book itself is full of colour, super pictures and step by step instructions. It would be a joy to browse it with a child to find the next bit of inspiration for creativity.

Wonder Art Workshop presents a variety of child-led art ideas for parents, caregivers, and teachers to share with young children. The book suggests setting out "invitations" for the children to participate in the desired activity. I have personally found that this is a great way to spark engagement. The activities presented in the book use a variety of materials including common household items, nature items, and purchased art materials. The activities are accompanied by material lists, suggestions for work spaces and explorations, suggestions for older kids, and recipes as needed. Each activity is also accompanied by several color photographs of potential set-ups, materials, and/or the activity in process.

I found this book to be a great resource for caregivers and teachers of young children. There are many activities that encourage engagement and exploration with art materials. I appreciate the way that some of the materials presented are non-traditional art supplies. The color photographs allow readers to visualize the execution of activities. One thing that I felt should be included are notes about using items from nature. First of all, readers should exercise good judgement about where they obtain nature items from as some areas may have restriction on collecting these items from parks. Additionally, readers should be mindful that nature items (such as acorns and pine cones) may be home to insects. While these items may also be great for art activities, the reader likely does not want unexpected visitors in their home or classroom. Otherwise, I feel like Wonder Art Workshop is well organized and offers a variety of creative activities.

I received a free copy of this title from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

#NetGalley #WonderArtWorkshop

Great book filled with fun and creative ideas for children. I love this book fosters the creativity of a child's mind and many of the projects are based on allowing the child to take the lead on how they want to create their project and experience letting it take shape. This is a fantastic way to give your child artist freedom by letting them take the lead in art exploration. Can't say enough about this simple but fun book. I received this book from NetGalley for an honest review.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers.

This book is bright, colourful and full of fun and different craft ideas to suit almost every child's interests and encourages different varieties of materials, experiences and play.
The authors passion for art clearly seeps through the pages of this book.
A great book for parents or anyone who cares for or works with children.
Some great information and advice is given within the pages of this book too.

What a fun book of projects. As a mama to four I found myself able to find something I could do with each of my kids here. The art projects here can be for all ages, adults included. The pictures were beautiful and the instructions were clear. I'm looking forward to having this as a resource for our family.

As a parent in today’s society it can be hard to find a balance between calm and chaos. Allowing your children to blossom into their. Relative selves without stifling them while you help them become society ready adults.

I felt this book was really great and helping us as parents calm and let the kids take the lead. Just follow along and encourage them. Easier said than done at times and I think we are all guilty of micro managing sometimes.

A bunch of great craft ideas with questions to ask your children about what it is they’re creating.

I love arts and crafts. I think it is a fantastic way to encourage imagination, and creativity while doing something that is beautiful together.

This is a colorful, fun and child-friendly book for caregivers of young children who'd like to encourage their love of art and imaginative play. Author Sally Haughey clearly loves children and art, and gives excellent advice on how to create a perfect art environment where kids take the lead in their art explorations. Photos of kids doing the activities are used throughout.

The book provides instructions for 25 creative projects such as making chalk paint (letting kids crush colored chalk in a mortar and pestle and then mix it with water and paint with it), loose part creatures (giving kids things like corks, washers, plastic caps and a strong adhesive so they can create their own creatures) and making flowered playdough (making a simple flour-based dough and then giving kids dishes of flower petals they can knead in).

Haughey gives lots of tips like asking local florists for their unsalable flowers for petals (she recommends seeking out organic ones). She also provides tons of advice for making the environment and each activity child-led and child-friendly. She points out that it's developmentally appropriate for young kids to go through a phase where they just want to make puddle after puddle of glue, for instance, and says that she provides little pans to squeeze onto at those times and buys large, inexpensive jugs of glue and refills the bottles. She also tells of how to use songs and stories to teach proper use of art materials, like introducing children to "Tippy" the paintbrush, who loves to dance on her toes (hold tippy by her silver skirt and help her dance lightly) and a song that teaches kids to put caps back on markers.

I love that the book focuses on doing art that kids will love, not on art that they can bring home to parents for the fridge. Too many generations of kids were stuck with art projects where all the kids were supposed to make something by doing this that would look like this at the end, instead of just giving them a variety of fun materials that they could explore and experiment with. This is the kind of art that fuels curiosity and wonder, though it also helps kids in other ways like building the motor strength for writing.

The book seems a little skewed towards use in classrooms and day cares and less towards the home, though all of the projects can be done in the home. I'm not sure how many parents are going to partner with florists to have a good supply of organic flower petals. It's also geared towards very young children, like the toddler and preschool age. She gives ideas for ways to make it fun for older kids, but the focus is on the very young. It's also not the most budget-friendly book for very low income parents. While many materials are free or inexpensive such as "loose parts" and homemade play dough, not every parent is in the position to buy copious amounts of cheap glue for endless puddles of it or the large amount of materials that kids who given free reign tend to use. A creative parent can work with this, though (I always did) and the projects and philosophy will be put to good use in any environment with young kids.

As a last note, experienced parents and teachers are unlikely to find many new projects in the book. A few were ones we hadn't done in our home (such as giving kids round white paper lanterns and liquid watercolors to drip on them), most are pretty standard like stamping with different objects in paint. One of the most important elements of this book is the teachings about how to create this kind of environment and make it enjoyable for kids, not necessarily on art projects that nobody ever thought of. Just as The Read Aloud Handbook is so useful because it teaches how and why it's so wonderful to read to children and then provides some wonderful book recommendations, this book focuses on the how and why of creative child-led art exploration while providing fun inspiration. I would especially recommend it to parents of very young children and day care providers who are looking for ideas to set up child-led art activities.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.

Wonder Art Workshop
By Sally Haughey
There were some fun ideas shared in this book to be creative and explore your environment. I love that art allows you to be uniquely expressive. With kids learning to communicate art can be a really great tool to understand better their feelings and understanding of their world. I appreciated the approach this book took in introducing each idea. Art is flexible and each activity introduced allowed creative process. I can’t say that I plan to do each of these projects with my kids but the activities provided sparked other ideas for projects my family might enjoy as well.
I received a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

This book contains some principles for early childhood learning through art exploration and then many different activity ideas with lots of detail. To me, a lot of the projects are so similar that I can't help wondering if kids would find them repetitive. Then again, my toddler doesn't mind doing the same thing over and over again, so probably not.

The author provides suggestions for alternative materials - for example, in case your kid is allergic to something in the project - and includes tips for classroom management & minimizing mess. A lot of the tips are more suitable for a classroom setting than at home, but that's mainly because of the quantity of items needed. For example, if you need to buy a block of potter's clay, that could be a big investment for just one or two kids at home.

Overall, there are some great ideas in this book and I would recommend it for classroom or in-home art activities. I'm already thinking about which ones to do with my 3-year-old at home.

Wonder Art Workshop is a tutorial and resource guide aimed at children and their parents/teachers/caregivers. Due out 12th Nov 2019 from Quarto on their Quarry imprint, it's 160 pages and will be available in flexibound and ebook formats.

This book is full of child led creative experimentation and learning activities. The introduction gives a short overview and definitions of child led learning, the benefits of the methodology, and some practical tips for implementation and guidance.

The following chapters describe how to set up a creative space, tools, supplies, safety, observation and objectivity, giving guidance, collecting materials (parts, as the book refers to them), and other background info aimed at the adult facilitators. The next three chapters include 25 workshop tutorial projects such as making (and using) chalk paints, spaceships from old CDs, magic lanterns, lots of painting projects, etc. Interwoven in the tutorials are good solid pieces of advice for helping children unlock and access their creativity, problem-solving, and more. The book also includes an abbreviated links and resources list as well as art display tips, a short author bio and a good index.

The photography is abundant, clear, illustrative, and attractive. The typesetting is easy-to-read and the graphics are attention grabbing and colorful and suit the projects well.

This would make a great book for parents, caregivers, library activity coordinators, teachers, and such. I can also see this book being a good support text and resource guide for students majoring in teaching/art/therapy fields.

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Oh my goodness, Sally Haughey has always been one of my favorite teachers to learn from and this new Wonder Art Workshop book is absolutely beautiful in every way. Wonder Art Workshop gives the reader a step-by-step guide for how and what to present to children to get to their true creativity and away from the cut and paste crafts we often see in early childhood. The pictures throughout were absolutely beautiful and the reader was immediately drawn into the process themselves. I can't wait to add this to my professional learning library.

Wonder Art Workshop by Sally Haughey is a wonderful guide for early childhood educators. The book takes a Waldorf approach to art making. It is a philosophy that is often forgotten in preschool and elementary schools and one that makes for a positive learning environment for kids.

Haughey provides lessons for many different ways children can explore paint, clay, chalk, and the world around them. Ideas for setting up the environment and methods for encouraging creativity through the use of activities like storytelling are included in the book. This is definitely a process that takes a bit more planning and setting up than a typical cookie-cutter classroom art project. However, it absolutely provides a jumping point for learning and expression.

How I love this book, it takes me back to my childhood where people created things from very little and learnt to be resourceful and creative.
With the holidays upon us, what a brilliant opportunity this book can open to get them away from all the electronics in our children's lives. This book presents a way of opening the creative and research side of children - how to mix paint, how to colour clay, how to use ordinary materials, have fun and get the little minds thinking for themselves. With heaps of ideas, little expense and projects to get started on, this is a great book for everyone to have fun with.

Wonder Art Workshop by Sally Haughey is a wonderful guide for early childhood educators. Fun projects on every page for children and adults. The book takes a Waldorf approach to art making. This is a highly valuable resource for anyone who works with children.

Very transformative to empower children with Art!

I found the introduction wonderful where the author exposes 4 principles to honor and validate children's innate ability to build their own learning. They are sensitive and deep principles that opened my eyes as an educator and father, contrasting with our traditional educational system, made me realize several rigid concepts that I have exercised but that I am on the way to transform. In my opinion, the way Sally Haughey puts it is very valuable.

The author presents her proposal of what she calls “THE WONDER-BASED ART PROCESS”, where she assembles an invitation to play, to take part in the activity, creating a space to develop a sense of beauty and wonder within the child. Paraphrasing the author "The experience itself must be one of exploration and experimentation with amazement, leading children to ask to create again and again, and to advance to a stage of innovation where they express their own ideas and projects." Throughout the book there are 25 Workshops, with Art-Making Tips, Tips for Watching Wonder and Children’s interests and How to use stories to create magic around art making.

A beautiful quote from the author:
<A young child is discovering what it means to be human and to have desires. There are safe places to give a child choices. Art making is one of the most powerful places to give a child a voice in what they want and don't want>

My sincere appreciation to the Publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to review the book

A nice, intent-based collection of art projects, mostly for small children. These would work particularly well for rainy-day recess periods or after-school groups. Some require a fair amount of materials. The author supplies recipes for things like playdough. Although she dips into jargon and overly formal language sometimes ("Set up the materials in a way that facilitates the process"), overall the book explains the projects and their objectives well.

Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for a digital ARC.

This is an ideal book for parents of young kids or teachers of pre school and primary school aged kids, or babysitters looking for new activities. The materials used are easily accessible and fun to use for kids from a very young age to get them interested in creativity, and spend quality time exploring art.

Wonder Art Workshop by Sally Haughey is a great book of fun art projects that are easy to do at home with your favorite little artist. Beautiful pictures and full recipes/instructions for the craft projects.

A beautiful bright book with clear instructions and genuinely fun art projects. This is the type of book to inspire children's creativity and allow them the freedom to take the lead.