Throughout each school year we save our favorite art pieces from each student.
This art is then collected, fixed up and organized into some sort of gallery. The gallery is displayed at our preschool graduation and end of the year celebration for all the parents and students to enjoy.
Choosing Art for your Gallery
The process of choosing which art to save and which art to send home can be tricky! You want to maintain a good balance of both so each child has a good representation of art at the end of the year. You also want to make sure you are saving art throughout the entire school year, this will show the development of each child’s skill level.
The art we like to save includes:
- Major projects
- Art where the child has done a great job at writing their name
- Drawings from the writing center
- Sculpture projects
- Journals
The list of items to saves could go on forever, but I wanted to list a few to give you a better idea of what I was talking about. I also like to display any class pictures or tokens the children have used in the classroom throughout the school year.
Putting Your Gallery Together
To put our gallery together, I raided our local dollar store of all their white display boards. Then, I made sure each piece of art is trimmed and mounted nicely. Finally, I just take a piece of clear tape to attach the art to the board! I find that we are able to fit about five to six pieces of art on the boards and then display a few on the table.
Why we do a Gallery
The biggest reason for displaying a gallery of work each child is because it shows how their skill levels developed during the school year. For some children they will have papers with one or two lines and then by the end of the year they are drawing stick figures. Other children will come into school writing their name backwards on their art and leave writing the letters in their names in the correct order.
Plus, it’s really cute! It’s so fun watching the children proudly show their families the work they did throughout the school year.
Things to Consider
- Make sure you save art from all points of the school year.
- Lay out your art on the boards before taping, this will make sure you have enough space for everything you’ve chosen.
- Remember, not all art has to go on the boards, if you don’t have enough room you can display some pieces on the table in front of the board.
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