Friday Group - Picture Collage

This week on our journey with collage I presented the children with various pictures to "stick" on the contact paper. I had photo cut outs of each child, animals, and other objects. Using the contact paper as the surface on which to "glue" items I am really trying to draw the children's attention first to the properties of the contact paper and then to the visual (this week) and textural (last week) qualities of the materials presented. As I reflect back on children's explorations this week I notice that the there are a few particular actions that all the children are using with the materials. There is the exploration of the actual containers, the motions of placing and removing items from the contact paper, transferring and collecting the materials, and identifying the what is on the collage items. The following videos highlight these collage experiences.

Container Exploration

Much of the container exploration involves dumping. Bryce is very intrigued by the acrylic container, moving it, trying to get pictures out of it, and all his hard work led to the demise of the container, but all for a good cause.

Identifying Pictures

This was a fun discovery for the children whether it was recognizing a friend or animal or asking a question, the participation of the adults proved crucial in this exploration. I love how Amy, Max's mom, reads Max's fish lip movements to know that he is identifying the fish he sees. Then as Kaia finds the fish she pauses at a picture and stares at it for a long time. I notice her interest and realize she is looking at a picture of Hannah. I mention this to her and she looks away from the picture to the real life Hannah playing elsewhere in the room.



Collecting and Transferring

This action involved the children taking the pictures out of a container (sometimes giving them to another person) and then putting them back into a container. Sometimes the pictures were collected and deposited one at a time or grouped together as a bunch.



Placing and Removing
While much of the placing of the pictures was accidental the removal was much more challenging. Hannah spent some time trying to remove pictures and then place them back into a container. Even as she is distracted by the departure of Kaia she continues to work hard.