A child’s rights

I have come back to this blog after a long break. And I looked  at the header image for this blog.  This detailed drawing  with nothing to accompany it. No story. It’s intriguing! I loved it as an image drawn from a child’s thinking and learning.

But I just took it.  I took it and used it  with no credit given to the child as artist.

Where is the right of the child to be honoured for their learning? And does it have value if nobody “owns” it? if we can’t document a child’s thinking and learning around it?

But it does have traces of a child’s learning – we can recognise that a thoughtful child created this. It took time to do such careful, detailed drawings. That it “might be” including insects, ant or other creatures. That there are some caring “big” people holding out their arms to – do what? welcome? nurture? collect?

I still come back to my lack of respect for the voice of the child-artist. I am not the teacher I was when I chose to use this image. I am learning.

And I will share this with the current children and offer it as an invitation – for them to honour the artist and develop their own thinking.

 

 

The African violet

imageThere has been a lot of activity in parts other than the art area lately, and we wondered what we could do to spark some fresh exploration and interest at the easels?

So Louise put some cutout paper pots on easel paper, placed the pot of African violets nearby as a focus, and waited…

It didn’t take long. At the start of the next day there was lots of interest and over the next few days almost everyone had at least one go at painting them, some did two. The children took great interest in doing these paintings and felt real satisfaction in what they produced. Lots of parents noticed them too – they created a wonderful effect in our art gallery. IMG_7813 (4) African violet 2nd

IMG_7810 (3) african violet 1st

Spinning colors

imageThankyou to the person who first applied paint to paper inside a salad spinner! This is an art activity made for preschoolers! We have 2 different spinners, which take real motor planning to operate. An art experience of mixing color becomes very physical as you learn to pull and then let go quickly, because to hold the string means it doesn’t retract and the spinner has to be taken apart and string rewound. The children who practise their bowling in cricket quickly understand about this variation on the same skill of releasing. Others needed hand over hand tuition sometimes, but they all persevered – building learnacy skills through this strong motivation to explore color through movement. (with engagement comes language, planning, review and evaluation, concept building and personal choice.)

The results were as individual as they are.

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learning about our Australian heritage – the Aboriginal culture

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Our special visitor, Willy, came for another visit and we used twig brushes to do some dot painting on little boomerangs. And we had fun with him – he showed us how he used to make a hopscotch game when he was little.

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Thanks for another wonderful visit, Willy!

The Tyre Shop

Some tyres have been delivered to the kinder. Louise has plans to make a tyre garden. But in the meantime …..

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Setting up the tyre shop was simple – just start.

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Neil hauled some more spare tyres over.

Use the switches board from the shed to start the hoist and gently lift the car up to work on the tyres.

 

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Now “who was here first?” asks Rory?

Offering an environment that includes “loose parts” gives the children opportunities to create and develop their own ideas. And at the end, they go back to being tyres for other purposes, but in the play there has been independence, cooperation, imagination, role play, language and communication, ingenuity and the satisfaction of using their own ideas and skills. And they played safely and sensibly amongst the pile of tyres.

Learning about hunting for emu eggs

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We had a visit from Auntie Colleen to tell us about looking for emu eggs and being safe in the bush.this is always a fascinating visit for the kinder children, as many of them are already familiar with being out in the bush but may not have been shown tracks, nests, or ways to recognise signs in the bush environment. Learning the Barkindji word for emu – gulti- and other words is very empowering – some children weeks later are still referring to emus as gulti. Most of the children were keen to express their new understanding through their art work.

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