Sunday 31 July 2011

Making stop signs


After a long car journey with endless questions from Cakey about traffic rules and street signs I decided she might like to make some stop signs. We sat together with some white and red paper, I cut the shapes, she drew on them and stuck pipe cleaners on them with sticky tape. This was a really simple activity with very little mess and it filled in a good half hour very pleasantly. If I had thought of it at the time I would have added some yellow triangles for giveway signs and some strips of black and white paper for zebra crossings... maybe next time.

4 comments:

  1. fantastic to focus on process not product and to let them experiment with shapes and colours without an adult chipping in and telling the "right" way to do it. it is a wonderful way however to explore shapes together and can lead to another car activity spotting the shapes and colours of signs and encouraging them to hypothesise about why some signs are one shape or colour and some another - do we know ourselves??? It could lead to another short activity researching the rules of the road.

    Denise

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  2. thanks denise, great idea about the road rules, Cakey is constantly asking about why we stop, go, turn left etc in the car, we could turn that into a very interesting project

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  3. I agree that the process is vital for exploring new experiences. However, sometimes the child may need help with learning a new skill to take their learning further. This fits in with what Denise said about the sign activity. The more knowledgeable adult scaffolds the learning. Many parents and practitioners I have worked with often focus on the product which destroys the creativity and experimentation that is needed for us to develop fully in life. Keep upspreading the word - Perhaps Cakey could produce signs for 'Process not Product, lol.

    Julie

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  4. Thanks for joining in with the first Kids Art Explorers - hope you'll play along next month too :)

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