Ms. Sanchez’s Investigations:
Look what I drew, it's You!
March 2013
As I observed the children in Ms. Szymaszek’s class during
the first few weeks of the semester, I noticed the children have many
interests. While working with them, it’s
been challenging determining the focus of their play because they enjoy using a
variety of materials. As I observed them
working, I notice the children enjoy building, cooking, and pretending to be
families in the block area. For that
reason, I decided to create three material exploration lessons related to those
ideas. I used craft sticks, flour, and straws to encourage the children to
share which idea inspired them the most.
When working with these three activities, the main lesson the children
were interested was the flour exploration lesson. During this lesson, I learned
that building wasn’t their main focus.
As we worked together, I notice the children became more focused on
cooking, families and creating drawings to represent their ideas. However, from those three ideas the
children’s main focus was drawing. The
children were very interested in talking about how they could represent their
ideas through pictures. So I
thoughtfully designed a self-portrait lesson to help me reveal if that topic
was the idea that was sparking curiosity in the children.
Due to the fact,
there are a variety of activities occurring in the classroom, I decided to have
a defined space for the children to explore with minimal distractions. For that
reason, I chose to take two children at a time to the art studio. When working
in the art studio, I provided the children with a mirror, transparent papers,
and a black marker. As they worked, I documented their words and actions during
the activity.
While
the children explored this lesson, my intentions were to see if the children
were able to distinguish their facial features such as their color of the skin,
their eyes, mouth, nose and other facial features. In addition, I encourage the children to become
aware of how different each individual is and how great it is that we are all
different. I wanted the children to
begin learning about how everyone is different and that it is okay to love
yourself no matter how you look. As I
encourage the children to explore this idea, they responded very well. They
were all very excited to begin noticing that they were each special in their
own way. After observing the children
and analyzing my documentation, I discovered that the children were very
excited about representing themselves through a drawing. I also discovered the
children were able to begin distinguishing a variety of different ideas amongst
each others drawing. As I mentioned
earlier, the children thought it was interesting and exciting to learn that
everyone had a special feature about himself or herself. In an effort to follow the interests of the
children, while encouraging them to explore their facial features; I have
implemented several lessons involving the idea discussed above.
1. We have read the book the Color of Us by Karen Katz,
which gave children an opportunity to learn about a variety of differences
between children. The children were very excited to hear about all the special
names the children within the book had gave their skin color and were able to
recognize the similarities and differences between the children.
2. The children have drawn their own self-portraits, which
gave the children as well as myself an opportunity to see how the children saw
themselves.
3. We have also read the book All about Faces by La Zoo,
which gave children an opportunity to learn about their facial features. They
were able to learn about how our facial features can represent our emotions and
let others know how we are feeling.
4. The children have drawn portraits of multicultural dolls,
which gave the children the opportunity to draw what they were seeing. In
addition, it gave children an opportunity to reflect back on their own
self-portraits and talk about similarities and differences amongst themselves
and the multicultural dolls.
As the semester continues, the exploration of the children’s
self-image will continue growing. I have been thoughtfully planning lessons for
the upcoming weeks that will be both engaging and meaningful for the
children. Later in the week, the
children will be exploring a picture, which shows the body of a person to
encourage them to create their own face on the bodies. As the children engage in this activity, I
want to see if the children use their previous knowledge as they work on this
lesson. This idea will help me see where the children’s ideas are and how I can
scaffold their thinking. In addition, we will read the book A Safari Face to
Face by Sally Hewitt, which will encourage the children to notice the
similarities and differences between the animals and their own facial
features. After that, the children will
begin to explore each individual facial features more in depth as they explore
one facial feature at a time.
Overall,
as I work with the children my goal is to develop lessons that spark curiosity
in the children, while helping the children to build positive self-esteem. As I
continue to explore this exciting idea with the children, I would love to have
any book suggestions or activities that relate to supporting the children to
learn about their self-image and building positive self-esteem. I welcome you
to share any ideas with me and I thank you for being very supportive in your
child’s learning experience.
