As the new year begins, Preschool 1 children have been exploring a variety of learning opportunities that allow them to discover new interests while enhancing skills that we have been working on here in Preschool.
Preschool 1 children have been working on their fine motor skills through engaging activities, further they have also showed interest in learning more about their alphabet! To combine both of these learning opportunities, Preschool 1 children engaged in a process art experience called Symmetry Name Painting! An Educator wrote their names with a marker in a big piece of paper, then they used a paint brush to trace the letter of their names, after tracing their letters some of them painted around their paper making it more colourful, the last step of this activity was folding the paper and once they unfold their painting, it reveals a new painting from folding it!
To make this experience even more exciting, we asked the children what they see from their painting after unfolding and here are some of their answers:
- “Yellow, purple, and a circle!” -Amelia T.
- “A dinosaur!” -Jayden
- “Number three!” Easton
- “I see letter N,o,a,h” -Noah
- “Flowers!” -Amelia W.
This activity also holds a deeper significance for the children's self-identity and sense of belonging. Seeing their names written on the paper already made them feel excited about the activity! With a big smile on their face one of them said “These are the letters of my name!”. Moreover, the open-ended question about what they see in their painting encourages self-expression, allowing each child to articulate their unique perspective and imagination from their own artwork.
Overall, this activity allowed us to weave their creativity, self-identity, and sense of belonging while enhancing their fine motor skills and letter recognition.
