What happens when PreK children create art standing up instead of sitting at a table? At Gillispie, vertical art experiences are giving our young learners new ways to explore materials, movement, creativity, and collaboration.
Using a table rod system and other vertical surfaces, our PreK students painted, wove, arranged, and sprayed materials. Working vertically encourages children to use their whole bodies as they create, helping develop strength, coordination, spatial awareness, and the fine-motor skills that support tasks such as drawing and writing.
Some explorations added the challenge of movement. Children painted suspended natural materials, including tree cookies, shells, crystals, and pine cones, adjusting their approach as the objects moved and turned beneath their paintbrushes. At a vertical wire surface, they experimented with cords, ribbons, clips, reflective objects, and natural elements, discovering different ways to weave, fasten, hang, and connect materials.
The shared surfaces also encouraged collaboration. Children worked alongside one another, observed their classmates’ ideas, added to existing arrangements, and watched as their individual contributions became part of a larger creation.
In another exploration, children used spray bottles filled with paint to create marks on cotton fabric. By changing their movements, pressure, and distance, they observed how their actions affected the way the paint traveled and landed, turning art into an investigation of cause and effect.
The finished fabric was later transformed into a curtain for the classroom bathroom stall, giving the children’s collaborative artwork a meaningful purpose in their environment. What began as an artistic experiment became something they could see and use every day.
Vertical art offers young children much more than a new way to paint. By taking art off the tabletop, our PreK students are strengthening muscles and motor skills while experimenting, problem-solving, collaborating, and discovering new ways to express their ideas.