Blog three - Crayons
By: Michelle Wheatley
Date: 23/03/2013
Here's a little video tip, great for recycling old crayons within the centre or at home. Also a great little activity to get the children involved.
In my centre we are very fortunate to have all our arts and crafts resources available to both the children and teachers at all times. Each room in our centre has an art corner where the shelves are stocked with anything from paper and paint to collage materials and resources to paint with. Each room has been given a pot of 100 crayons and we are lucky enough to have these made available to our infants.
Arts and crafts is a main interest to our children in our toddler room (2 years old) where I do spend some of my time when our head teacher is out of the centre. When I was last in this room (a little over three weeks ago) the children had been creating self portraits of their whole bodies. The permanent teacher in the room had found a roll of paper that we were able to roll out on the ground and then have the children lye down on this and trace them. After the children and I had finished cutting the traced bodies out they all spread their pictures out and used the crayons we had in the rooms to draw on these bodies. I noticed the younger group in this room used a lot of colour and mainly had little scribbles. The older children however still used a lot of colour but coloured in certain areas with certain colours. The children had made sure they had filled as much of the area they were colouring with a crayon before moving onto the next colour and the next space on the body. (I wish I was able to get a photo of the finished products before they went home to parents). We created learning stories on each of the children during this activity, we did a group learning story as well as individual learning stories for the different learning each child accomplished.
Ministry of education (1996) states that "Children gain experience in using communication technologies such as crayons, paintbrushes, pencils, calculators, books, and computers" (p.97). The children have a cupboard fill of art materials in this particular activity and they have chosen to use the crayons to draw on their own bodies. The children in this room have developed a sense of independence because they have had the resources made available and have made a choice which resource they would like to use and what colours they would like to use. I think as their teacher I have facilitate their learning by providing them with a range of resources with the space to go through with this activity and encouraged them to make decisions on their own. MacNaughton and Williams (2009) states that "As a teaching technique, facilitating refers to the process of making children's learning easier. Facilitation therefore, refers to all the things staff do to make children's learning more possible, such as scheduling, selecting materials, organising space, and interacting verbally and non-verbally with them" (p.81). Each child told a story with their drawings, even though they may look like scribbles on a piece of paper to some people, i like to take children's artwork seriously. Because the children that I happened to be working with talked full sentences I was able to ask them open ended questions. It was a great opportunity for me to get to know some of these children individually and expand on the children's language and social skills. MacNaughton and Williams states that "Asking questions to children provides them with an opportunity to think and to use language in a functional manner by allowing them to report observations, describe experiences, and make predictions" (p.153).
On a final note Gonzalez-Mena states that "A toddler's scribbles aren't just scribbles; they are age appropriate art" (p.427).
Michelle it is great to see that the children experience freedom to explore with crayons which some people may not realise as you highlighted are a form of communication technology. I was'nt really aware of the varying forms of technology until we have shared our experiences, in our centre's, on lin. Had you considered how it really does develop a community of practice outside our usual area(Yang, 2009)?.It is a great way to engage with each other and it seems to provide a wider perspective for us to be reflective practioners (Wang, 2008). Did you realise that our social world shapes what we use as time moves forward as a means of communication? In my day it was crayons but now there is a variety of technology that provides the same outcome of communication (Fleer & Jane, 2011).It is wonderful to hear the value you as a teacher place on the childrens art work and communication, often a comment from parents and other children even some teacher's can be "it's scribble".Your facilitation is central to the younger childs experience which reinforces skills and concepts (Ministry of Education, 1995,Technology in the New Zealand Curriculum).Had you thought about videoing the experience I know it can be hard to support children and take photos at the same time so video is a relativley hands off way of recording and mobile,it goes with you if you wish (Smorti, 1999). I know I say this every time but I enjoy your blogs, veiwing clips photos and reading about a different perspective thankyou for sharing.
ReplyDeleteAwesome blog michelle!! love you idea of tracing around the children to do a life size cut out of themselves!! would love to of seen some pics but I might just use this activity in my centre!I think its awesome that your centre gives the children free rein on the art equiptment...mine does too, however I have worked in a few where they put out a limited amount of resources..and I always thought..whats the point in even having an area like that if theyre going to limit the resources, so well done to your centre!!iT It is evident through reading this blog that you are an efficient and effective facilitator of children's learning! It is awesome that you have made the time to talk to children one on one and hear about what their art work means, it is such a valuable learning time for both the child and the teacher, questioning and critiquing allow children to start thinking critically and more in-depth (Arthur, Beecher, Death, Dockett & Farmer, 2007). I really loved your You-tube video about recycling the crayons they look awesome!! I will definitely be trying that activity out! thanks for your great blog :)
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Arthur, L., Beecher, B., Dockett, S., Farmer, S., & Death, E. (2008). Programming and planning in early childhood settings (4th ed.). Victoria, South Australia: Thomson.
Michelle thank you once again for inviting me to share your world of teaching infants and toddlers!
ReplyDeleteWhen I read your post I was over taken by thoughts of how you were supporting children to have a sense of self-worth and that technology was helping you do this, this is so important as children grow. So I went looking through our curriculum document to look what else might be in there about sense of self and found these two sections “Toddlers are struggling to evolve a sense of self and to achieve independence from the adults to whom they are emotionally attached while at the same time needing continuing emotional support.” (Ministry of Education, p.23). By drawing around themselves they were getting to see what they were like as individuals and technology helped with that. I also found children “develop an enhanced sense of self-worth, identity, confidence, and enjoyment” (Ministry of Education, p.40). Your perspective of teaching has given me a different side of teaching and technology that I had not considered. I’m really glad that we have had the honour of hearing your perspective in our group.
Michelle are you surprised how your thoughts on technology have changed reading the rest of the groups blogs? I think I’m amazed how through reading everyone’s posts I’ve got a perspective of technology weaved throughout our curriculum document. Do you feel the same? Really makes you think about how important all those different lens are when you are observing children. I couldn’t have learnt as much if it hadn’t been for our totally diverse blogs.
I notice that two of your post are on non-technology, are you hinting to me your thoughts about the use of technology and infants. It just made me think about Kathy’s first dilemma? I can see that you believe in free movement? Might be interesting for your final reflections.
Stunning and original blog for a stunning and original teacher!
Donna
Thanks Michelle for your final blog, and my favourite! You are so lucky to have so many resources readily available to both the teachers and children! I loved that the children had the choice of materials to use and were not just given crayons, as art is all about self-expression and exploration! (Gonzalez-Mena, 2007). I believe you defiantly have facilitated this activity in a way that empowers the children to choose their own materials and express themselves (Ministry of Education, 1996). Having opportunity to choose their own materials has also enabled them to pick the technology that will best suit their need and meet their desired outcome. I think it’s great that even though children where at different development levels, you valued each piece of art, because what may look like scribbles is a developmentally appropriate expression of what that child wanted to communicate or express (Gonzalez-Mena, 2007).I think it’s really special that though the use of this simple piece of technology an environment has been created that promotes social interaction, creative expression, fine motor skills and a sense of belonging.
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