Observing today went well. I had been whining to myself about having to assume a passive presence, but today I felt better about my role in the classroom. I'm just there to observe and that's all. I also read the assignment more closely and realized I wasn't taking enough detailed notes to answer all the questions, so I looked and wrote more; and that made the time fly. The teacher is great—very down to earth friendly. Not the case with some there; but I shouldn’t expect red-carpet treatment anyway. It is, after all, a bit of an inconvenience having us extra bodies in the room.
I observed 6 kids painting at easels outdoors. The teacher put smocks on them and they were told to paint something that inspired them from their morning story or any other idea they had. Each easel was equipped with 4 pots of tempera paint and each child got a long-handled, stiff bristle brush. The painting began. The children worked for a short time (5 or 10 minutes) then started to look at their neighbor’s progress as closely as their own. Next, some paintings began to become muddy because the children were putting their brushes into all the pots of paint. “Look at mine.” “What’s that?” “I wish I could do that;” were some of the comments I heard.
In manipulating the paint brush, the kids were using movements that would foster the development of their shoulder and arm coordination—both necessary skills in the sequence of proximodistal development that, in turn, lead to fine motor skills development involving the hand and fingers. The children were also exhibiting or working toward the milestone achievement (for 4 year olds) of demonstrating the ability to paint or draw with a purpose as well as name objects even though they (the objects) might be unrecognizable.
As a follow up or continuation of easel painting I would simply repeat the activity—maybe with another “inspiration prompt” that, like the scenario I just described, came from the morning story about the monkey and his caps. By repeating the activity it would help some of the kids overcome their timidity and build their self-confidence by becoming comfortable with the very daunting and involved process of putting on special clothing (smock); coming up with an idea of what to paint, and then manipulating the brush that moves the drippy paint to where they want it to go; and then finally “feel good” about their masterpiece.
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