I just started teaching 4 yr. olds at our church pre-school (more like mother's day out as it's only 2 days/week). So the first day, the kids are coloring a Creation sheet with a tree, monkey, leopard, etc. One boy colors everything pink. No attempt at all to stay within the lines - just scribbling, broad strokes. Now if he had colored the monkey pink, the tree red, the leopard green, I could say he was being creative, artistic. I asked him why the monkey/leopard were pink, and he told me he had seen one at the zoo. I really got the impression he was just avoiding doing the work and/or doesn't like to color. So how do I encourage him to try to do his best at coloring? All the other kids were working really hard and trying to do a good job. I realize they are not going to be strictly within the lines. I was just frustrated that he hadn't even tried.
He is being creative and true to his developmental level. Don't worry, 4's are not ready to color within the lines. I am more surprised that the other children were so careful. At this age, I would give them blank paper, and no coloring sheets.
Why should he try his best at coloring? It's a mindless activity. Sorry, but making kids color is one of my pet peeves. Many preschool age children just do not have the fine motor muscle stamina to do a lot of coloring. Many children find it boring. Also, they are not going to learn anything about the Bible from a coloring sheet.
Everything you described is normal. He's normal. I have seen lots of kids who like drawing a picture with only one color. I've got a little guy whose favorite color is yellow, so he only uses yellow right now. I'd say forget about giving him ditto sheets to color, but instead give him and the other kids blank paper to draw on. As long as he's using the crayon for it's intended purpose you've got nothing to worry about. If he starts eating the crayons, putting them up his nose, or stabbing his friends with them then you can worry.
OK, thanks! I'm new to this age. I used to teach 1st grade. The Bible story color sheets are the one thing I'm required to do. Other than that, we are doing a lot of our own drawing.
I have observed that Sunday School is ususally very scripted compared to school. The art activity is usually not very creative and the lesson includes lots of coloring. I would just do what you can, and make the lesson the main point.
I kind of disagree about coloring. Yes, many do not have the fine motor stamina,but there is nothing wrong with them coloring if you don't require perfection. many of the 3s I've worked with colored with in the lines for the most part. I'ts not about the end product,but about the process of developing that control and as far as boring goes, many enjoy it and those who don't tend to rush through it,but they learn that sometimes we have to do things we don't really like to do and we can still do our best--- not a bad life lesson to learn.JMHO
You could certainly split the difference, by beginning the coloring sheet as the final activity. Then you have talked about it and handed it out. The children can color while the parents file in and pick up the others, now you have a transitional activity preceeded by a closing discussion. You can have them bring the sheet back next week- in encourage the families to "help the children with concepts though out the week". Then you have met your goals, offered the color sheet, and you can fill the day with more developmental activities?
coloring isn't a mindless activity-- it helps with building up fine motor muslces, hand eye coordination and color recognition among other things. Sure there are other ways to teach those things, but that doesn't mean that coloring pages are mindless. My pet peeve is people who aren't open minded enough to look at all the possiblities or using ALL the tools at our disposal--including coloring pages.
I think coloring helps with eye hand coordination. I include coloring every day in my Preschool. I also encourage them to use more than just one color. I tell them God made things in different colors and it makes our picture more realistic if we try and add more than just one color too. I also think most 4 year olds can do more than just scribble. All my 4's in the past have mastered this. It is my 3's class that I see just scribbles.
Coloring is, indeed, good eye hand coordination. But there are many DAP considerations to be made. But, in this situation, the OP is using canned material and the coloring sheet is required. Keeping the material DAP and using the coloring sheet is the challenge. I do like the idea of using it as a final summary, and alllowing the children the choose.
I have coloring available at my writing center every day. But my new favorite thing for that.....Have you seen the books called "Scribbles" or "Doodles" ? There are a few of them. The page has open-ended possibilities for the child to draw. So for example, the knight and the tree are printed for the child to color. Then there is an empty castle and the question is "What is happening in the castle?" The child can fill in with whatever. I thought it was a nice combination of mindless and creative. As life should be.
:thumb: Coloring does have benefits. A child builds -Attention -Crayon Grip -Control -Posture, strength and endurance Children will color broadly over an illustration at first then refine their strokes. It is important that the activitiy is DAP because many children this age do not have coordination, grip or strength.
Young kids naturally just grab the crayon that is closet to them. They don't always think about color choices, it's a quick emotional kind of picking. There are different levels in our growth in mark making as humans. lol It's the same way in which a child's ability to draw people shows their ability (ie when they get older..I can basically tell who are my 'higher' 'middle' 'lower' kids. http://www.learningdesign.com/Portfolio/DrawDev/kiddrawing.html that is a good link to give you the techy term art teachers use to describe the stages of drawing development. Obviously there is always overlap with the stages and ages, depending on maturity, interest, experience, learning disabilites etc.
Coloring a color sheet is a mindless activity--since there are so many other DAP activities to meet the needs.
I respectfully disagree about coloring sheet being a mindless activity. And jsut to makea point, even if it was,it would still serve a purpose--- often "mindless" activities are great soothers to help a child relax---- the fact that you do not personally like them does not make them mindless and even mindless is not necessarilyy purposeless. My 3sand4s choose what picture they want, and they color it how they want-- a sign of creativity, andthe DO often give thought to what color they color things and can tell you why they chose it--- opening up communication skills and resoning skills. Each and every activity can be what you make it--- every activity can be mindless if not presented in an appropriate way and every activity can be purposefull and DAP if presented in an appropriate manner. Too bad people are so quick to throw out DAP as an excuse to not use thier own minds to create DAP opportuniites out of whatever is available to them. Some 3 year olds find it fun and fun is never mindless.
but, sarzacsmom, you have about a million other things available for the children throughout the day right? The color sheet isn't the end all be all of the day, and they aren't required to work on grip until the fingers hurt, assert hand dominance at 3 and color w/in the lines or risk starting over? So, although you are using color sheets, you are still working within your DAP-----------true?
At uni we were told colouring has no educational value whatsoever. On prac, my supervising teacher was really into DAP, child initiated curriculum and the Reggio Emilio approach. Commercially produced packages were frowned upon so no stencils, the children can make their own and free hand drawing. As previous posts have said, there is fine motor development and some children actually enjoy colouring and find it relaxing (from experience it's girls more than boys). On prac, a little girl brought in a colouring book from home to colour at school and this was not welcomed by the teacher. I thought that was rather sad. To encourage children to colour I put out different writing implements eg felt tip pens (thick and thin ones), twist up pencils, twist up crayons, normal crayons, and gel pens.
When children are colouring, I find that there is a lot of language. My class is mostly ESL children and it is interesting to observe the interactions and the discussions they have about what they are going to or have drawn.
Wa- of course! I would never have ONLY coloring sheets or coloring books! when we do anything involving coloring I ENCOURAGE them to "draw a fence" (trace the lines as best they can) and then "make all the white go away" inside the fence. Some do very well and some don't-- I would never force a child to repeatedly do over --that's ridiculous. when we are doing something science related (like our apple pics) we talk about what colors apples are and then they choose which of those colors they want to use. My free art area has coloring books, lots of blank paper, glue, scissors, colored pencils, crayons, markers, top markers, spin art, rulers, pencils, and as we work on various projects, it will include leftovers for them to do with what they wish. Painting is available, but they have to ask for it as we do not have water avaialbe in the classroom so I have to set it up. I also have an easel and dry erase boards,and stamp pads and stampers, and stencils and rubbing plates in my free art area. I have all the usual things in my classroom liek blocks and cars and kitchen area which includes a nursery and a tool bench area and lots of manipulatives and science stuff and games like ABC, #, and sound bingo, concentration (matching), flashcards etc. Ieven have ringtoss and a bean bag throwing game I made. We do weekly reader in prep for them to do letter workbooks in Kindergarten and we practice writing letters and names and math activities and do geography projects and all kinds of cool hands on projects. It was coming across like coloring pages were evil and I was only making the point that they can have a place as well.
Yes, I know. And I was making a point that color sheets can be used in conjunction with other things.......as I knew yours were. In the past, in my area, a preschool did just hand out color sheets -daily. with nothing else, all of the focus was on those sheets. The children were working on grip and what not till they cried....... I believe that these sorts of program who no on can argue are DAP, are the reason that the movement said "no color sheets". However, you aren't doing it that way, and so I would imagine you children are happy and healthy.
thanks Wa. I do belive that my kids are happy healthy and learning and discovery everyday. The goal is to make learning fun and fun learning. that's why my classroom is called the Discovery Zone-- where school is fun and learning is an adventure!
I teach in a Christian child Care Center, but I don't have to do Bible lessons---not that I would mind--- but we have a Bible Story Lady that does that twice a week. We are however an academic based program. I have goals and objectives for the children to meet by the end of the year, but it's pretty much up to me how the material is presented
