Child directed art: Beauty and evolution

Sophia is doing occupations this term in school. She has been regaling us all week with complicated descriptions of what postmen do.

On Tuesday night, she wanted to tell us how Ms Andrea had set up a postbox in school and wanted to set one up at home herself. Here they are working on it.

The interesting thing about child directed art is that kids gget to experiment with resources. Here, Anjali is trying to use a cereal box to cover up the postbox.

For some reason, it didnt work. I am not sure what the reason was, but she soon discarded the cereal box in favor of the cardboard from a milk carton. I guess if I had interfered, we could have done the job with the cereal box, but by keeping quiet, Anjali had the chance to figure out the solution for herself.

Sophis is now looking for ways to decorate the mailbox, which I helped them cut holes for.

Here it is, all decorated

All other areas are decorated with stickers, except one side where Anjali drew trees and clouds and butterflies.

A note about the trees: Notice that they are gradually decreasing in size? When I pointed this to Anjali she said that it was because the trees are going further and so they are getting smaller.

They have been putting letters in the mailbox all day, and so have I, so it is a rather sneaky way to introduce reading and writing