I always enjoy visiting the kindergarten classes and seeing how much they can do. This week the children were working on the letter Q and part of their “work” was making their very own queens.
Before getting started on this type of activity, the teacher has already shared with the children what will be included in the process. She gives them some direction as to how to create their queen and where to find the tools and materials they need. From that point on, the children work at their own pace and with their own understanding of the process.
Although I loved watching the children as they created their queens, I think what fascinated me most was watching them as they carefully and purposely used these large bottles of glue.
I was so surprised to see how capable these kindergarten children were at managing their use of the glue. It was obvious they have been given ample opportunity and time to explore with glue bottles and develop their skills to manage the glue bottles effectively.
Their ability to draw their own pieces and cut them out was also exciting to see. This little boy worked on drawing his own crown. He looked over at the teacher’s example of a crown on the dry erase board. The teacher will often give the children a little tutorial on the more challenging pieces of the process before they begin.
Of course next is the challenging task of cutting the crown out. With all those angles, I wondered how well the child would do. But as you can see below – he was quite accomplished in his ability to manipulate the scissors.
This process had many parts to it which was part of the intended purpose. The goal was to not only allow children time to be creative but to also foster their ability to stay organized, to complete a task, to remember directions, and to continue the development of their fine motor skills. But if you ask the children what they were doing the answer was almost always the same – “We are making queens.”
Now back to the glue – this teacher didn’t just throw out the glue bottles and say go for it. She invested time through many different activities to teach her students how to manage the flow of glue.
I have seen many activities where children have glue running all over the place but this is part of the learning process too. I know glue is messy and it takes a little muscle to clean up but let me encourage you to offer up activities that help teach children about the flow of glue and in time and through much trial and error, they will begin to develop the skills they need to be successful big bottle glue handlers!
See the Glue Table in Teacher Tom’s blog!
