It is forecast to rain heavily for the next 5-6 days. It's not cold but it will be wet enough to keep us from using the art area on our back deck. So while it is still dry and we have the time, we moved our art materials inside. This is a temporary move, perhaps for the week or so, we usually love doing art outside!

Naturally, we made a lot of adjustments when moving our art materials inside. We didn't bring in any paints or clay. This area inside has carpet and although we use a rug in our children's area, we don't want to risk any big spills or mess. 

What we don't have in our inside art area:

• paint - while we don't have paint on these shelves, I have presented painting activities on a tray, see the last photograph. 
• clay - if we were to use clay inside I would set the activity up in our kitchen or at the kitchen table. 
• art easel - I could bring this inside later to use with pencils or markers. 
• large pieces of paper - while I am happy to get larger sizes out for the children to use, we've only made smaller <A4 pieces of paper and cardboard inside. 

What we have in our indoor art area:

• paint sticks
• model animals
• feathers - I love to include some elements of nature in our art areas
• coloured pencils - STABILO and LYRA.
• beeswax block crayons 
• stamps - animal, vehicle stamps and self-inking stamps
• paste
• coloured tape
• various stickers
• theme/shape hole punches
• scissors
• brush tipped markers
• lead/graphite pencils
• beeswax crayon sticks
• pipe cleaners - soft florist wire is another option for sculpture, making figurines
• natural and coloured craft sticks
• googly eyes
• oil pastels
• chalk
• playdough tray - with playdough, stampers, textured rolling pins, and cookie cutters
• mirrors
• chalkboards
• various paper and cardboard

Our art supplies are in the Ikea PS Cabinet. This cabinet is low enough that we can put materials on the top and my three-year-old can easily reach them. The cabinet can be locked, ours is usually left unlocked but the lock is a useful feature if we don't want the children to have access to the materials. This would work so well if, for example, you planned an art session in the afternoon and didn't want to encourage art before then. 

On top of the cabinet with have the Ikea MOPPE drawers. This is useful for holding small bits and pieces. The drawers are also easy to move around the room or inside/outside.

To make this area attractive to the child, I've put a few materials on top of the cabinet. I find see-through containers inviting and the materials are almost asking to be used. The paint sticks and model animals are in old Ikea jars. 

I am careful not to overfill the cabinet. There are so many possibilities when considering art materials for young children. We need to remember that too much choice can be overwhelming for young children. I try to keep the area as functional as possible, for example, if offering pencils we need to provide paper, if we have a chalkboard we need chalk. Containers and trays keep things like mirrors, paper, and playdough tools accessible and tidy. 

Many of the clear containers are a part of the Ikea GODMORGON set others are old jars. The open clear containers tell the child the materials are ready to be used and it makes it super easy for the young child to see what is available. 

There is enough space inside the cabinet for all of the art materials. So if I want to tidy up I can leave the top of the cabinet free or this is a good place to put one or two art trays or practical life trays. This is another good way of presenting art trays in a controlled environment, we can put out the activity when we are happy for the children to use them.

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