Monster Writing!

Whilst learning about Chinese New Year the girls drew a dragon and wrote a little about what they knew of Chinese dragons. They so enjoyed doing it that I followed it up with reading 'The Gruffalo' by Julia Donaldson this week. It has some fabulous descriptions of the gruffalo! I printed out these cards from Primary Treasure Chest which use the original artwork from the Gruffalo. They served to focus the girl's attention on the descriptive words used. We made a collection of our own descriptive words and grouped them together so that the girls could use them to help them write about their monsters! I used the printable page borders from twinkl as a writing frame for the girls to draw their monster and then describe it. I can't make the picture sit up the right way for some reason!

I'm glad that Eve is getting into creative writing a bit more - she gets excited about doing it and won't let me see until she is finished! She occasionally checks a spelling with me and I am finding her spelling fascinating - she can't 'hear' contractions so well, for example she has written 'is' for 'it's'. So far I'm not jumping on all those things, just storing them up for the future and being very encouraging and excited about her writing!

Sensory Play With Foam

I have to confess something here..... I have always considered sensory play with foam as a bit of a cliche....... until I was cleaning down the builder's tray on Wednesday and the children were a little restless and I suddenly decided to go for it. And it was well worth going for!!! It was great; the children loved it, in particular one little girl whose hands are in the pictures and who until a short while ago wouldn't touch anything wet and messy!!!

She first explored how the foam felt on her hands, then swirled it around on the tray, making ever larger and more expressive arm and hand movements.  She then watched another child use a finger tip to draw in the foam so she tried that (see the top picture).  The two children started walking then running around the tray with the fingers of one hand making a circular track in the foam around the edge.  Some time later I added plastic balls to the tray and here is the little girl smoothing foam over the ball; it flipped out of her hands a few times and she adjusted her grip to keep hold of it, then the pushed it across the tray.  She ran round to push it again and a game began between the two children; they pushed the balls to each other.  This little girl is 21 months and she used trial and error to perfect her pushes to get the balls just across to the other child.  After the game had ended she went back to swirling the foam, putting her nose almost on the tray to look very closely; she put some on her cheek and felt it, then on her cardigan and looked at the pattern it made.  She was absorbed with the foam for nearly thirty minutes..... it was amazing to watch and guess what? Foam will be on the play menu again next week with some new twists to extend her learning!

Try marble pictures - good for a bit of primary colour mixing fun!

Another great one to try is mixing one part PVA glue to three parts shaving foam (I sprayed it into cups to measure it out). Mix the two together until the foam glistens, you could add food colour also.  Spread the foam thickly onto card and allow it to dry - it will stay magically puffy after it has dried!

Have fun!! Jenni x

Skills for early Writing (part one)

On Saturday I went to a seminar about literacy in the Montessori setting.  I was struck by the large number of skills that a child needs to have developed in order to write successfully.  Generally across early years settings there seems to be a lot of focus on mark-making and 'emergent writing' with little consideration given to preparing the child to be able to do those things!  If a child is pushed to write before they are fully prepared and developmentally ready then there can be long term effects that actually hamper the child's efforts to write.  These effects take the form of 'bad habits' that have become ingrained such as a distorted pencil hold or backwards formation of letters.  So what are the attributes that a child needs to develop?

• Tripod grip - strength in fingers and hand needs to develop, alongside good control over fine-motor movements in order to hold a pencil and write.
• Lightness of touch - needed to avoid pressing so hard that pencils break and paper becomes gouged.
• Flexibility of wrist and hand - needed for continuous fluid writing.
• Hand-eye co-ordination - this is how the hand responds to what the eye sees, controlled by the brain, and will aid in controlling a pencil to form letters.
• Memory of shapes - the mind is almost like play dough, shapes leave an imprint upon it making a lasting memory.  This is why correct letter formation from the outset is so important, and why leaving out letter tracing activities can be counter-productive for young children.
• Visual discrimination - recognising the difference and similarities between things; this will help to tell apart letters such as b and d.
• Self-esteem - A child valuing him or herself and being valued by others around him or her will feel confident enough to give things a go that are new or a little difficult.
• Concentration - this is a skill that needs to have developed in order for children to be able to focus for a long enough time to learn letter shapes and their sounds.
• Sequencing - knowing what becomes at the beginning, middle and end.  it provides a structure that the child will use as a foundation to build grammar upon.

All of these skills are equally as important as each other and when taken all together provide a mighty looking list of skills that we can support very young children to develop in order that they may have a good chance of beginning to write successfully when they are ready.  In part two I will look at activities that can support each of the skills, both shop-bought and home-made.