By HOLLY WEILEDER

Staff Writer

The Louisiana Tech Early Education Center was transformed into an art gallery April 15.

Portraits, mosaic tile, watercolors, pointillism and replicas of Van Gogh masterpieces were displayed.

This was a result of a required education class, Family and Child Studies 401.

The artwork was created by the children to be displayed for their parents.

The FCS students had to develop a two-week lesson plan for the early education children.

"This is my third year in education, and what makes this project so fun is seeing how excited the children get over they gallery and how proud they are of their work," Jessica Chavers, a junior early elementary education major, said.

The Early Childhood Education Center is a pre-school for three and four-year-olds.

It is accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Laura Chestnut, the director of the Early Childhood Education Center, helps head up this project.

"We want the purpose of this project to be for our students to realize you can teach young children more than just the simple things like color and size," Chestnut said.

"Children can comprehend so much if you just teach it to them correctly."

Children can learn things like fine art, which Chestnut and Dr. Janie Humphries, a professor of human ecology, decided to concentrate on a few years ago, Chestnut said.

"When an incident occurred with my five-year-old, I realized, if she could understand the complexities of fine art, then I thought to myself that three and four-year-olds could too," Chestnut said.

"That is where we came up with this idea."

At the gallery, candy, crackers and punch were served to the children and their parents.

The children's artwork was displayed all over the room on large boards, along with pictures of the children actually doing the work laid out on the tables.

There was also a picture slideshow of the children doing their work on the back wall of the room, going on while parents toured the artwork.

"A lot of work and many, many hours go into this," Deborah Cobb, a senior early education major, said.

"But the kids' smiles make it all worth while."