wayne thiebaud for preschoolers

I've always loved the idea of introducing preschoolers to artists. I live in a small community with no access to a large-scale art museum so no field trips for us. Instead, I try to introduce artists to the kiddos that tie in with the literature we are reading. For years, we read Jan Brett's Gingerbread Baby, and I thought it would be a perfect link to the art of Wayne Thiebaud what with all the sweets.

One way of introducing the artists to the children to to set up an "art shelf" whith a variety of manipulatives, pictures of the artist, a book of their art, and small prints of their work if you can find them (postcards work great for this).

I've done shelves for a variety of artists, this is what we had on our Thiebaud shelf.

Top shelf, left to right:

candy themed memory game from eBoo

a book of Thiebaud's art

laminated postcards of his art

another book of Thiebauds art

cupcake and sweets themed lacing activity

Bottom shelf, left to right:

ice cream scoop game

handmade bubblegum magnet activity

this super fun cake balance game