Making marks : Making meaning

This week our focus during small group time has been mark making. Specifically at this stage we are looking out for the meanings behind the marks that children are creating, and how children control their mark making equipment. With links to creative development, physical development and literacy, mark making has a strong significance within the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum. Mark making is how children learn  ‘pre-writing’ skills. Before children begin formal teaching of writing they need to have developed control over certain muscles within their arms. Asking children to sit at a table and hold a pencil too early in life can have a negative effect upon their desire to learn. Young children should have the opportunity to draw and create marks on a large scale using a variety of resources.

Mark making is not all about pencils and paper. Although the list is exhaustive, using chalks, crayons, brushes, sticks, making prints in playdough, paint, mud, water, glupe, flour, and even using their bodies are just a few ideas which can provide valuable experiences that will help our children learn to write later in their lives.

Already we are seeing some children forming their own letters to write their name. We are not requiring children to write their names, they are doing so because they have shown an interest and they want to. By encouraging children to learn at their own pace we are encouraging deeper level learning. We do not want to switch children off to learning at an early stage by making learning to write too formally.

We learn about the purposes of writing through imitation of adults through role play. By having a notepad and pen next to our role play telephones we help children to understand one of the ways that writing can be used in a real life scenario. Helping an adult at home to write a shopping list is another good example of how to support young children’s learning of writing.

It is important that we value and respect children’s mark making in order for them to have confidence to continue, practice and develop their skills. To an adults eye a child’s random creations may not seem like much, however to them there is often a story behind it. Instead of asking “what is it?,” which may show a complete lack of ability to grasp their meaning, try something more positive like “can you tell me about your picture?” The language that children use to describe their drawings will invite you into their thoughts and ideas.

This week we have seen lots of pictures based on our interest of books, specifically The Gruffalo, and of our families and pets, one boy wanted to make a treasure map and another began a huge tale of Spiderman climbing up the walls to chase baddies! All would have been relatively unclear to adults overseeing the activity had it not been for some careful questioning and open listening to the language that was used to describe their creations. So you see that what is important at this stage is not the clarity or neatness of children’s creations, it is the meaning that it has to them.

Just a peg

Five children sat around the table with the peg boards. As they worked we chatted about the patterns they were noticing, there were shape patterns and colour patterns "I've made a line around the edge"

"I can see a square and there's a red one, then a yellow one then red, red, yellow, yellow"

"I got green, green, green!"

Their pattern identification became more expansive as well

"I'm three"

"And I'm three but your a girl"

"I'm a boy and you've got a stripey top"

There was a wider pattern to their play as well, they would take an interest in the pegs that they were working with, some would work around the edges to form squares and then fill them in line by line, others would start the same way but make smaller and smaller squares. Then again other children would place them in random holes but worked with a clear determination to fill up their tile. They paid attention to what each other were doing and chose colours to match or helped to find particular pegs if they were needed. When they had finished their tile (as far as they wanted to go) they would tip all the pegs back into the bowl ("It looks like fireworks") before starting the process, and pattern, again.

Their behaviour too went in patterns; when one boy said "these are my pegs", the other children repeated the same phrase and regarded each other very tensely. The atmosphere was then broken when the same boy said "look you've got some the same as me", everyone looked down to theirs and then they started to share with each other before the next moment of tension appeared when someone could see their peg in the bowl and moved it closer ("we got to keep it in the middle!").

I sat next to these five children musing about the pattern and structure that our day follows in the Den: it's subtle but it's there. Our free play is based around group times at the start and end of the session with Ed taking a group of Forest Schoolers out to have a specific session in the paddock and beyond and smaller groups splitting off from the main room to focus on more detailed games and projects that allow the staff to get to know their children all the more closely.

This free play takes on intricate patterns through the children's interests and social interactions as well as their physical and emotional development. They develop their sense of self, who they are and who they want to be. We don't pressure them to fit the boxes and we wouldn't expect them to fit into our categorisation of "what a child aged x should be doing" and as for school readiness... if a child feels confident in themselves then they will deal with the pressures of life far better than if their constantly being shown who they should be.

As this play continued another girl came up to the group and asked "What are you all doing?"

One boy answered "We're just putting pegs in holes"

but there's far more to it than that...

It's started!

Two of our older children had been to see Disney on Ice together, this is a section of the observation that Tam made during their play. I love the way it captures the excitement of backstage preparations, the thrill of the audience waiting and, above all, the magic of performance Charlie, "I need two more seats for my babies." looking at the chairs around the cosy corner she said, "Those are my babies' seats." placing the dolls onto them. walking back to the carpet she joined Daisy, holding hands they smiled and shouted together, "Disney on ice! Disney on ice!"

Daisy, "It's over. Now it's a brand new show."

Charlie, "I need my shoes on."

Daisy, "Now get the cushions." Daisy picked up and placed two cushions onto the carpet. "This is a brand new metal show."

Charlie, "This show's on and the chocolate van's here. The chocolate man has eaten the ice­-cream!" she looked shocked and wide-eyed then burst out giggling.

Daisy looked seriously at everyone who sat in the audience, "The show's over in ten minutes. Here's a brand new show from me today. Is anyone watching? We must wait now"

Jessica and Phoebe came over to Charlie and Daisy.

Jessica,"My show is dancing."

Phoebe: "My show is singing."

Daisy and Charlie went to the audience on chairs around the carpet while Jessica and Phoebe sang and danced, at the end they clapped.

Daisy announced the next interval, "The ice cream van's back, time to get some ice creams."

Jessica, "My show is starting over, the customers are at the show." Everyone was sat quietly in their seats waiting for the show to begin, I asked Florence if I could have an ice-cream, she said to me, "Strawberry ice cream and yours was strawberry ice cream and the babies got strawberry ice cream!"

Jessica theatrically announced, "1,2,3,4,5."

Charlie and Rosa joined in repeating her counting together, "1,2,3,4,5!"

Daisy announced, "Ladies and gentleman welcome to Disney on ice. You're welcome to cheer and shout."

Florence smiled at me and said, "Tam it's started!"

Part of the same game

It's become a normal part of our day for parts of the garden to get blocked off for repairs by builders, recently there have been disagreements between the builders and the bikers who need to travel down down them. The other day, after several sessions of this stalemate we managed to come to a solution Builders: "The road's closed, you can't come this way."

Bikers: "I need to get down this road, my home's over there!"

Bu: "There's a crack in the road you can't come down"

Bi: "Tim, we can't drive down here but I really need to get over there"

T: "Sounds to me like there's some serious work happening: what's wrong?"

Bu: "There's a crack in the road we need to fix it"

T: "And how long will that take?" (this question really helps with sharing problems, give the children control over their time limits in turns)

Bu: "uh.... I think.... but, well it'll be about 5 hours" (they won't really take 5 hours)

T: "Ah, then we need a diversion!"

I ran in to get some chalk and explained briefly what I was about to do before starting to draw arrows along the ground for children to follow...

This is common in the way we work at FRHQ and is (unironically in this case) called scaffolding. The adult's role is to extend ideas introduced in play to open up new ideas and directions to children, to flow with the play and only directing it if problems are becoming apparent.

In the above example my part was not to tell the builders to move or the bikers to stay away from the road, they were all part of the same game... they just didn't realise it yet!

Once the arrows were down, I left the chalk out and let the activity carry on unhindered:

"Alright builders, let's get the bits and bobs done"

One child drove on to the building site with his bike, the builders all turned and explained calmly that this was not allowed, the biker responded "Oh, I'm not in work today cos my baby's ill. S, Can you take my bike home? I've got some work to do" and promptly joined in.

I watched the play expand and evolve, taking in new ideas and bringing different children into the mix. There were arrows drawn, cracks created and fixed, blocks marked with different names so we knew who had put it down... There was even a sojourn in the jungle (I am still unsure how that happened) and when the session came to a close the play was still in progress in one form or another around the garden.

Building work continues to spring up around the garden but now it doesn't prove a big problem, everyone knows what the game is and get around as best they can

[gallery ids="4989,4988,4987,4985"]

I'll be good to the land

At the end of August I set out with two other musicians on a 5 day musical cycling tour. Under the title 'Pedal Folk' our aim is to promote folk music and sustainable touring using just the power of our own legs. During this tour we covered 130 miles, climbed 10,000 feet and played seven gigs in pubs, record stores, a tapas bar and a library, you can have a look at our adventures at www.pedalfolk.co.uk. We decided to challenge ourselves this time round and spend as little money as possible as we went. Each day we bought a loaf of bread, a block of cheese and made it last through our days cycling with the only additions being what we could forage from our travels; evening primrose in Bath, blackberries near Bristol, horseradish on the way to Stroud and, of course, the ubiquitous apple.

We have a beautiful apple tree in the paddock and over the last week Ed and I have been talking about the need to start picking as some of the fruit are on the turn. On Friday morning we took all of the children out with the mission to collect as many apples as we could: and what a crop we got! Armed with our specially designed telescopic apple grabbers (or fishing nets) and our bare hands and with the Autumn sun gently warming our backs we picked, and picked, and picked

All of the children stayed around the tree picking, carrying the fruit to our overflowing baskets and chomping their way through apple after apple, I'm sure that we're going to have a lot more apple trees growing around the nursery after today!

We supported our work with a lovely little song that Lucy taught us:

"High up in the apple tree

5 little apples smiled at me

I shook that tree as hard as I could

Down came an apple, mmm tastes good!"

Repeated as a counting song it created a great atmosphere.

The question is now, what shall we do with our crop? I've been thinking up a little rhyme to help us out:

"Hat fulls, cap fulls, bushels, bags and sacks full

But the apple in my pocket is just for me

Hat fulls, cap fulls, bushels, bags and sacks full

But the apple in my pocket is just for me

Juice, pie, crumble or cake

With my apple: what shall I make?

Juice, pie, crumble or cake

With my apple: what shall I make?"

I always consider our foremost responsibility as adults is to provide our children with a wide range of experiences, the chance to take part in this activity gave the children a greater idea of where our food comes from, the way it tastes when it comes freshly from the plant, it builds their trust in eating wild and it also develops their physical ability and understanding about amounts. We are going to be baking and juicing next week so conversations about amounts will be important, joining the process and relating experiences from home will also be part and parcel of the learning experience. I can't think of a better way to understand and extend learning and development than to provide a broad activity and then pay the closest attention to what comes from it and adapting accordingly. It's sometimes best to open an idea and be carried by it as far as it will go, the results will often be surprising.. and rather tasty!

To finish, have a listen to a song written by my friend Robin Grey which tells of a community gardening project near London: The Ballad of Hawkwood

Happy scrumping

Tim

Physical Development (how not to land on other people's faces)

The weather has been wonderful, the rain has (in the main) kept off and the garden is dry Get out the ball pool!!

A little while ago Charlotte came to the nursery having bought a huge amount of soft play equipment including a 1.5m ball pool, it has been fantastic to provide the children with a way to develop their physical motor skills whilst having a soft landing at the end! Creating different spaces for children to push themselves physically means that we have to be aware how to create rules to manage them. One of the best ways is to let the children choose themselves and so self-govern the space; saying "watch out!", looking for the space, thinking about children who might be under the balls...

And it's not just the ball pool getting the use

"look how high I can jump!"

"I did a forward roll!"

Watching children push themselves and testing how far their confidence will let them go has been mentioned before, when I watch our children I consider four stages of development

Unconscious incompetence: I don't know what I can't do

Conscious incompetence: I know what I can't do

Conscious competence: I can do it but I need to concentrate

Unconscious competence: I can do it

It's always wonderful to look back at the pictures and see the concentration on the faces of children who are very much in the "conscious competence" stage of their development, it's only after they feel fully confident with the processes of jumping and landing do we see the next stage: looking at the camera, smiling in mid-air, doing rolls and spins into the pool, helping others out and showing them how do jump in. And the best thing is that it's completely natural.