Young students should be allowed to feel they have a say in how their everyday spaces look. This bulletin board was decorated by kids in an after school kid care program. I hung up their paper puppets, drawings, and coloring sheets in just a few minutes. This old cafeteria never looked so colorful! I think they did a great job!
Showing posts with label turtle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label turtle. Show all posts
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
How to arrange objects according to size?
Animal stacking blocks for developing seriation skills. |
Arranging objects or pictures according to size is important for cognitive development. This process is referred to as seriation skill in the early learning classroom environment. There are a number of advantages for learners who excel at this skill:
- Students are better prepared for learning mathematics such as: the order of numbers, fractions, addition and subtraction.
- Processes in logical thinking become developed, such as: predicting outcomes, understanding relationships between objects, and making assumptions that can be analyzed.
Toy companies have been making products for babies for years that encourage even infants to practice seriation skill sets. I've included photos here of an animal box set that I keep among the toys in my home.
- Basic Math Skills in Child Care: Creating Patterns and Arranging Objects in Order
- Making the Most of Math in Early Childhood by the University of Nevada (PDF)
- Teaching Preschool Math - Learn All About It!
My alphabet, animal stacking blocks are stacked according to size. |
These elephants with big tusks and long trunks were fun for little ones to arrange from large, to larger, to largest etc... |
Above and below are black and white prints of elephants and rhinos of varying size that I printed, cut and laminated for my classroom several years of ago and these are still in great condition. The laminated surfaces allowed me to wipe them off with a cleanser of some sort before using them over again during many different class periods. Pre-k teachers can make multiple sets of images such as these for youngsters to line up in order of size with only a bit of pocket change.
Students practiced arranging rhinos according to size in my classroom several years ago. |
Below are wild animal clip art samples that visitors may use to make their own personal sets like the projects shown above. Pull the clip art into a Word Document and shrink or enlarge the beasts in order to have prints like the ones you see in my examples. I managed to print six different sizes using standard 8 1/2 x 11 inch typing paper. Start with the largest size and then scale the images down by dragging the corners of each image down to a slightly smaller version of the same image.
A tufted ape clip art image. |
A giant sea turtle clip art image. |
A striped zebra clip art image. |
"A preschool student stacks cups to organize them by size. View more at earlymath.erikson.edu
Focus on the Child videos are taken from one-on-one interviews with individual children. The interviews are designed to elicit evidence of children's mathematical thinking. They are not teaching episodes or formal assessments."
Focus on the Child videos are taken from one-on-one interviews with individual children. The interviews are designed to elicit evidence of children's mathematical thinking. They are not teaching episodes or formal assessments."
Monday, September 30, 2013
Paint, Cut and Paste a Leafy River Scene
This fall leaf art lesson was inspired by a very popular children's book, "Leaf Man" by Lois Ehlert. View and hear the book below.
The project may be completed over several consecutive days in an early learning center environment:
The project may be completed over several consecutive days in an early learning center environment:
- First day: Collect and share fall leaves from your center's playground and/or surrounding neighborhood.
- Second day: Draw and cut many stencil patterns from the leaves that students have collected from the previous day. Let students play with the stencils, discovering how these can be layered or moved about in order to mimic the creatures depicted in the Leaf Man book.
- Third day: Draw plastic combs through acrylic and glitter paints on construction paper to recreate the Autumn colors found in the student's leaf collection.
- Fourth day: Trace the leaf stencils onto the decorated papers and cut them out. Now let each student paste together his or her own river scene depicting fish and turtles similar to those illustrated in the Leaf Man book.
- Fifth day: Let the students help you display their dry art works in the hallway or classroom of their school. Serve up some warm cider or chocolate and talk about all the things they have accomplished while enjoying the fall leaves!
Harcourt Trade Publishers also includes a fun teacher's guide for an alternative art project. Below I have linked to additional fall leaf lessons that young students may enjoy.
- Fall Line Leaves from The Art of Education
- Fall Leaves Lesson from Deep Space Sparkle
- Why do Autumn Leaves Change Color?
- Art School: Fall of the leaf
- Explore fall themes to develop early learning centers
- Preschool themes and lessons about fall
Students paint, cut and paste leafy fish and turtles to swim in their colorful blue river. |
A detail of the paper turtle cut from papers combed with glitter paints. |
This popular children's book is read by Jonah.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Molas Characterized by Kuna Legends, Real Animals, Politics or Geometric Shapes
Both the crab and the turtle pictured here are my teaching samples of paper molas. |
The largest pattern is typically cut from the top layer, and
progressively smaller patterns from each subsequent layer, thus
revealing the colors beneath in successive layers. This basic scheme
can be varied by cutting through multiple layers at once, hence varying
the sequence of colors; some molas also incorporate patches of
contrasting colors, included in the design at certain points to
introduce additional variations of color.
Molas vary greatly in quality, and the pricing to buyers varies
accordingly. A greater number of layers is generally a sign of higher
quality; two-layer molas are common, but examples with four or more
layers will demand a better price. The quality of stitching is also a
factor, with the stitching on the best molas being close to invisible.
Although some molas rely on embroidery to some degree to enhance the
design, those which are made using only the pure reverse-appliqué
technique (or nearly so) are considered better.
Molas will often be found for sale with signs of use, such as stitch
marks around the edges; such imperfections indicate that the mola was
made for use, and not simply for sale to tourists. A mola can take from two weeks to six months to make, depending on the complexity of the design.
Kuna woman selling Molas in Panama City |
The mola forms part of the traditional costume of a Kuna
woman, two mola panels being incorporated as front and back panels in a
blouse. The full costume traditionally includes a patterned wrapped
skirt (saburet), a red and yellow headscarf (musue), arm and leg beads
(wini), a gold nose ring (olasu) and earrings in addition to the mola
blouse (dulemor).
In Dulegaya,
the Kuna's native language, "mola" means "shirt" or "clothing". The
mola originated with the tradition of Kuna women painting their bodies
with geometrical designs, using available natural colours; in later
years these same designs were woven in cotton, and later still, sewn
using cloth bought from the European settlers of Panamá.
More Related Content
- The Art of Being Guna, from The San Diego Museum of Man. Retrieved February 19, 2006.
- Molas: the Textile Art of Panama, from The University of Missouri. Retrieved February 19, 2006.
- Rainforest Art. Retrieved February 19, 2006.
- "About Molas"March 26, 2008.
- " Mola HistoryJune 16, 2006
- Making a Paper Mola Lesson Plan
- Kuna and Their Molas
- Collage Mola: Free Lesson Plan Download
- Folk Art: From Mexico - Mexican handcrafts and folk art is a complex collection of items made with various materials and intended for utilitarian, decorative or other purposes. Some of the items produced by hand in this country include ceramics, wall hangings, vases, furniture, textiles and much more.
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