Collage encourages tamariki | children to use creativity, fine motor skills, decision-making and imagination.
Your tamaiti | child can choose their own materials and create something that is entirely their own.
Tips for making collages at home#
A flat, low table is useful. Keep collage items in separate containers, well stocked with a wide variety of resources and displayed next to the table, not on it. This allows your tamaiti to help themselves and have an uncluttered space to work at.
Tamariki can use collage materials outside as well as inside.
For safety, collage items need to be non-poisonous, and larger than 5 centimetres if they are for tamariki younger than 3.
Collecting natural items#
You could talk with your tamaiti about respecting nature and show this by only collecting leaves and flowers that have fallen from the tree.
Consider tikanga | customary practice and cultural values when harvesting flora and fauna. For example, leave the central shoot and leaves either side when harvesting harakeke | flax.
The pā harakeke can be a metaphor for a living whakapapa, representing a whānau | family hapū and iwi. The rito | centre blade is the baby.
It is surrounded by its parents, siblings, cousins, aunties, and uncles, and they are surrounded by tīpuna | grandparents or ancestors.
It is important to only remove the external blades to protect the rito. It is tikanga to say karakia to clear the way before cutting the blades of the harakeke and to return the unused blades to the earth once work is completed.
Ideas for collage equipment
- Tools such as strong glue, round-ended scissors, staplers, tape, string.
- Large and small boxes, cartons, tubes, containers, lids.
- Fabric, velvet, lace, cotton, wool, hessian of all colours and thicknesses.
- Paper and cardboard, white, coloured, lined, unlined, greeting cards, envelopes, crepe, silver, cellophane, magazines.
- String, cord, wool, tape, twine of all colours and thicknesses.
- Markers and crayons.
Learning through collage#
Collage can help your tamaiti to:
- be creative and learn about multi-media art and design, patterns, dimension, and composition
- experiment with different materials, textures and colours
- learn skills such as glueing, sticking, taping, stapling, cutting and tearing
- work alongside other tamariki to share materials, tools and ideas
- explore the pictures, patterns and words of their own and other cultures.
Support your tamaiti#
You can support your tamaiti by:
- encouraging them to explore the materials and experiment with different ways to combine them
- demonstrating how to cut, tear, and manipulate the materials to create different shapes and textures
- showing them how to use tools, such as scissors and staplers properly and safely
- making suggestions and asking open-ended questions to help them to reflect on their work
- using rich descriptive language about what they are doing and materials they are using, for example, "the glue is very sticky, isn’t it? I can see that it is helping the gritty sand stay on the paper"
- collaborating and working together.
