Today Was an Exciting Day at Bing

Development in Early ChildhoodRuhi Vasanwala-Khan

Psych 147 - Journal

Observation: May 22, 2003

Observation: Painting

Today was an exciting day at Bing. I spent the morning observing the children who chose to paint. There were many creative painting with inanimate objects being painted, mainly flowers and rainbows. There were also children who painted a more abstract painting, choosing to blend the colors, and fill the paper entirely with color. Emma, one of the abstract painters who is also still developing her fine motor skills when painting, loosely gripped the paint brush as she dipped it into the paint and plopped it onto the paper. There was so much paint on the brush, and even though the paint was thick, it still ran down the paper. Emma, who was thoughtful about this process would place the paint on the paper with the brush and then use the brush to scoop up the running paint and lift it back where it belongs. We had a conversation when she was painting. We talked about the different colors she chose to use. Pink, her favorite color, is what she began with she said. She used many other colors such as yellow and blue right next to each other. Not constraining herself to lines, and with the paint being runny the colors overlapped and she noticed that there was now a new color in between the yellow and the blue. “What color did you make?” I asked. “Green” she replied. I wanted to reiterate that fact so I repeated, “So, blue and yellow mixed together make green.” She took this concept one step further and now all of the sudden everything made everything else! “Brown makes black and black makes brown,” she repeated over and over. This was particularly interesting to me because she didn’t have any black or brown paint, but she did mention that her father told her this. When she had finished her picture with paint she realized that she didn’t leave any room on the paper to write her name. She found a spot, maybe a quarter of an inch wide, along the margin of the painting that was still bare without paint and she said that was a perfect place for her name. She borrowed my pen and wrote her name in the way she knew how and only she could understand. After she was done, she wanted to write a story about her painting. I was really excited thinking I could use this for my paper about Children learning through paint. When we went over and sat on the carpet together, it turned out that she wanted to write the story for me. I realized then that if she wrote the story in her writing, which to me looks like many capital ‘M’s all connected together I would not be able to understand it. I asked her if I could write the story in my writing and she could hold the pen. She compromised by saying she would write the story and I could hold the pen! I thought about going one step further and telling her that just like when I write she cannot read my writing, I feel the same way with her writing. I repeated how I thought the conversation would play out in my head a few times quickly and realized that I didn’t know exactly how to say it and what the repercussions may be. So in the end we both wrote it. I wrote a line and then she wrote a line. Considering the story was only three sentences, it worked out well for both of us.

I also watched Sydney paint today. I have seen a lot of her artwork at the art table over the quarter, but I think this was the first time I have seen and talked to her painting at the easel. When I walked up, she was already working on her second painting and standing besides it while it dried. The first painting like Emma’s was covered completely with paint, only this one was not abstract, it was of a flower in the center of the page, with a blue sky behind it and raindrops. As I watched her paint her second picture of a salamander for Teacher Michelle’s story, I could see how developed her fine motor skills were. She had a firm grip of the paintbrush allowing her to be more in control of her brush and to paint carefully within the lines of the drawing of the salamander that Teacher Michelle outlined with a pencil. Impressed by her skills, I asked one of the teachers later to tell me more about Sydney. I found out that she just recently began painting flowers. At the end of the day, as I was walking out, I noticed that Sydney forgot to take her painting home and there were two others besides the two I saw. One of the others was also a flower. Sydney also has an older sister and guesses were that she may be modeling after her sister who may paint flowers. I also noticed that today at the Bing Track meet; Sydney did not participate and could not run. One of the girls that Sydney usually plays with, Ellie, on the other hand did participate in the races. When I walked out I noticed that the fourth painting by Sydney was a picture of a butterfly with both her name and Ellie’s name on it. I have been reading Elliot Eisner’s work on children and painting and how the children use their artwork to express their feelings about others.

Track meet at Bing

Usually when I am at Bing I notice that most of the children are paired off with their friends. Today with everyone all together in a more competitive environment, I noticed a little difference in the atmosphere. Let me begin by saying no one’s feelings were hurt, no one cried or got in a fight. These are just after thoughts of mine. I heard many children wanting to know “who won?” One of the girls said to someone else, “you weren’t first.” Many children were rooting on just one child’s name and not the other. I also remember back to chapter two when Griffen talks about not letting the children get over excited. Our children today were definitely excited, maybe even over excited, but it was great. Clearly competition was not highlighted, it was downplayed as much as possible and the race I think may have even been rigged so we would end up with a tie, but I still would love to find out my liaison teacher’s opinion of competition with the children.

Summary

Needless to say, this quarter has been great. Each week when I wrote my journal, I had an urge to begin by saying, “today was my favorite day so far.” If I had to do it all over again, I would have started with choosing Thursdays instead of Mondays. Regardless, I am thankful that I did change. It has been many years since I have been in a classroom and although it is a very different classroom than the one that I was used to, it felt wonderful. I did notice that at times, I wasn’t as comfortable in Bing’s classroom as I was in mine…but for the obvious reasons. I was in practice then, now I felt as if I was just re-learning a lot of it. The children in my classroom new me and trusted me much more. I was used to having more control in a classroom. Everything said I cherished this experience. I wanted to do something that I loved this last quarter here at Stanford, and I did. I wish I could have taken this class for more credit and come more often. I think I would have become more comfortable with this environment quicker. Four hours a week is just not enough to really get a feel for the children. I think I just learned everyone’s name and figured out whose mom was whose! I also find myself thinking about the children when I am not at school. I have grown attached to some children, more than others. Lastly, I realized again, what I realized a few years ago when I left teaching. I love being around children and helping to shape their lives, but I don’t necessarily want to be in the classroom. I think I would rather be a director of some sort, having a hand in administration, learning the business side, developing rapport with the community and the parents, and of coarse going into the classroom.

Painting by Emma

Paintings by Sydney