Use the comment area on this post to have a discussion that helps each other understand how children ages 2-6 seem to develop new understandings about line and shape (Meghann), designing (David), and symbolizing (Kathy) using paint.
You don't need to post in one huge comment; start by telling each other what seemed to be the most important or interesting points in your section, begin to ask each other questions about what the main points in each others' sections seem to be, and see if you can find places where the information seems to overlap.
These questions may be useful as you think about how to help each other understand what kinds of things are going on for 2-6 year olds according to Smith when they are exploring with paint:
What kinds of things are children learning about?
What kinds of things are children learning to do?
What can teachers do to support these learnings?
What kinds of new understandings seem to be happening?
How do they show up?
What problems or ideas do children seem to be working with?
How do children seem to be responding to materials and surfaces?
In the first section children are making more deliberate choices in their experiments with painting. They're choosing to make lines and shapes big or small, straight or curvy, and separate or overlapping. They're really exploring surface area and composition, mainly using repetition and variation. The most interesting part for me was learning how they use color at this point. They're learning how if they overlap shapes while the paint is still wet it makes a new color and then trying to mix to make desired colors. According to N. Smith, they generally try to keep the colors separate, even if they mix a color once they will keep it separate from the next color.
ReplyDeleteThe teacher can play a big role in their experimentation by supplying different size, shaped, and colored paper, a diverse set of brushes, and different environments to paint in. For instance, painting at a desk may be different than painting on the floor or with the paper on the wall. Asking questions of the students is also essential. This will help them to understand what they are doing (asking how they made colors, which shape is biggest and how did they use line to make it) and also further their artist vocabulary.
I like the way Smith asks questions in general - did you notice her style? I love it when she talks about helping students think about making choices by asking them questions about the paper orientation instead of making suggestions. But, I do think its a little odd that she also says things like (on p. 30 to Donny) "You made lines, shapes and dots, didn't you?" which looks like a question, but really is a statement. I wonder why she doesn't make a statement, and then ask a question about it (like she did with Billy)? Interesting. And maybe I'm being way too picky - maybe its the same thing...?
ReplyDeleteI think maybe it was variations on the same thing, depending on the student and they way they might perceive the question. Or just trying to show how different types of questions could be effective, because even that statement lead into other questions. Maybe it was just a way of transitioning into what she wanted to ask so the student could better comprehend what was being asked.
ReplyDeletePossible, the direct questions that Smith imposes on the students helps for students' awareness. However on the bases of Smith's idea about design concepts, her ideas follow along the same issues that you talk about Meghann. Students are playing with lines and shapes, finding the various possible creations, all of which is done on the "playground" of paper. When students are satisfied with their abilities to create lines or shapes, which applies to their aesthetic, then the issue of design comes into play. Those particular lines and/or shapes that they find appealing becomes a theme, a representation of their "identity," within their "work." (I am really interested in how this happens, as it is a bases for development and innovation.) Paper then becomes a space for composing rather than an open field to play in. In Smith's words, "...the paper's physical surface makes the problem of unity visible and concrete to the children."
ReplyDeleteI like the way that you focused on her attention to ways representations become a representation of "identity." There is a French psychoanalyst I'm interested in - Jacques Lacan (he's used in some literary and film criticism) - who said that every time we look carefully at an image and try to "figure it out" we're really looking for ourselves in the image. I think that's one way of saying that we're trying to make it personally relevant, or trying to figure out who we are by figuring out where we stand in/in terms of the image (or object, probably). So, why couldn't that happen for the things we make, too? Of course, it's only one way of looking at it, but it is interesting.
ReplyDeleteWhen children begin to see representational images in nonrepresentational pictures they've made, they realize they can begin depicting the important features of the objects and people that they see. Their first symbols arise out of designs they have been making for a long time, usually combinations of simple shapes and lines that can be easily turned into representational image. Children do a lot of experimenting with different possibilities and combinations of these shapes in oder to figure out what works best to represent the object. The knowledge they gain from this experimenting enables them to plan out images. They'll go about representing the same object in the same way later.
ReplyDeleteThe objects children chose to depict change over time.