The Police Visit
Early this morning one of our friends drew an amazing picture of her mom at the paint easel . I posted it on facebook for all our friends to enjoy and a friend commented that her grand daughter draws people with no arms also ! Did you know there are developmental stages to drawing ?
C. H. Wofgang wrote :
1-2 years: random scribbling. The child uses random scribble marks simply as a sensorimotor activity.
2-2½ years: controlled scribbling. The child begins to develop some control of his fine motor abilities, and the scribbles gain some direction and control. After some experience with controlled scribbling, a child may name his picture a “motorcycle” or a “big wheel” although there appears to be no resemblance. This is an intellectual accomplishment for the child, an indication that he is taking his first step toward being able to do representation.
2½ -3 years: the face. The next major development is for the circle to become a face.
3½ -4 years: arms and legs. The circle “person” develops stick arms and legs, which protrude from the circle, or the head; there is no body yet.
4 years: the body. The human figure begins to acquire a body. Gradually, more and more body parts are added (hands, feet, hair, ears, etc.).
5 years: the floating house. First “house” drawings usually resemble a face, with windows placed like eyes and door like a mouth. These first houses are usually somewhere in the middle of the paper and seem to be floating in space.
5½ -6 years: the house on a bottom line. The bottom of the paper is used as a baseline and the house rests on it.
5½ -6 years: a baseline supports the house. A base line appears within the drawing and the house rests on it.
6-7 years: two-dimensional drawing. The baseline begins to take on the quality of a horizon, which indicates the child’s awareness of two-dimensional space.
Another fun thing happening in our playroom today was I turned on the over head projector. Before smart boards came along teachers used these dinosaurs with a bulb. We have one for light play in our classroom. The boys were enjoying putting colored pieces on the light and seeing the reflection on the wall and putting two different colors on top and seeing the color change. ( Ie. The yellow and blue discs together turned green in the reflection. ) They also enjoyed seeing their own shadows on the wall.
The excitement for the day was a visit from two police officers. Officer Salley and Officer Sanchez came to visit. I LOVED LOVED LOVED their interactions with the children. When I called them I told them we are talking about ” People that keep us safe .” Almost everything they said or showed they brought back to ” to keep you safe” or ” to keep us safe.” Everything they said was on a preschool level. I appreciated their sensitivity. Later in circle time when we recapped what we learned from the police officers the children had retained a lot and were able to tell me about many of the tools the police officers had on their belt and what they use them for. Some of our friends recognized officer Salley. He owns CIty Barber Shop downtown. He only works there on Saturdays. Go by for a haircut and tell him you appreciate what a great job he did today at our preschool. Officer Sanchez is the officer stationed at Northside so the children will see him again when they go to kindergarten. What a wonderful way to begin to bridge that gap between preschool and kindergarten.
We have been wanting to move the large log from the stump area to the open area in front of the music station outside. Mr Randy finally got the dolly wheels fixed to move this huge log over . Add a long board to that and what do you get ? An old fashioned see-saw kept the kids entertained for a while. I let them explore a little today. They stood on it and lifted each other. They laid on it. They had a great time figuring it out. What a wonderful opportunity to learn about gravity and leverage. Yeah… thats learning and they didnt even know it. That’s the way we roll.
