Nursery World - Enabling Environments: Collections

Collage experiences not only benefit children’s fine motor development – they also provide a medium for children to represent their experiences and thinking, explains Nicole Weinstein

Matisse is one of the best-known artists to use the collage technique in his paper cutouts. This satisfying and exciting way to work involves assembling different materials on a chosen surface to create a new whole. Although the word collage originates from the French word coller, ‘to glue’, it is not necessary to fix the materials down with glue.

Early years and creative arts consultant Anni McTavish says, ‘Collage in the true sense, linked to visual arts, involves gluing materials or objects onto a surface – this can be flat or 3D. Children may also create moveable or no-glue types of collage using collections of materials. And there’s a whole other area under digital media – for example, programmes like iTunes PicCollage, where images can be assembled into digital collages.’

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