Early Years: Learning to Write
For Mother’s Day I sat with my grandson and together we made a present for mom. Knowing mom loves his art, I taught Brayden how to draw a pot of flowers. After drawing we talked about colors and coloring until ‘all the white parts of the paper were covered’. Four-year-old Brayden sat still, used his fine motor skills, was quiet, intentional and focused for at least forty minutes. His satisfaction and finished drawing was a reminder of how much impact forty minutes of focused activity means to a developing preschooler.
Imagine being a kindergarten teacher, tasked with teaching 25 sweet young students how to write. It’s a pretty daunting task and not for the faint of heart. Now imagine how much harder it is if these young ones can’t sit still, use a pencil, follow directions or spend much time in any focused task. Now imagine the enormity of the task for your kindergartener. There’s a lot riding on being able to write – and write legibly. From now on school is going to be about writing. The physical act of writing, even the speed of one’s writing,
One of my all time favorite things to do is to head into a classroom full of preschool students, sit them around a table and teach them how to draw. That would strike terror into the hearts of most people, but with training and a reasonable expectation of what is possible – it is a most remarkable experience.