Thursday Group - Drawing and the Bin of Balls

It's been amazing to watch the children really explore the environment and make new discoveries. This week I again offered the beeswax crayons and changed up the sensory bin by placing many different types of balls in to explore. What I am finding most satisfying is the children are choosing to be closer together as they explore and are beginning to interact more with one another. At one point Sebastien, Zadie, and Xavier were all "hiding" behind the peek-a-boo curtain having a great time together (Max just couldn't tear himself away from the sensory bin!). Here's a brief snippet of their joyous encounter.

There are so many discoveries that the children are making that it is hard to keep up. Max explored every ball and container with such depth and careful inspection.

He even discovered that the wooden balls made a very gratifying sound on the floor.

Every child at some point during the group session made his or her way over to the drawing area. Sebastien has been observing Xavier's writing skills because this was the first time he held and made purposeful marks with the crayons.

Xavier practiced his drawing motion and not just with the crayons.

Adding containers to the ball sensory bin gives the experience another dimension to explore. Watch as Sebastien fills and then dumps a container while Zadie deals with a wooden ball which isn't so easy to pick up.

Later Zadie tries to extract a ball from a container.

In the spirit of togetherness I had to include this last video. The "boat" is of particular interest to a few of the children. Sebastien especially likes it when others want to join him in or around the boat. As Xavier explores the boat and has a lot to tell everyone about it, Sebastien's excitement is uncontainable. He's just not quite sure what to do with himself.

Friday Group - Drawing with Beeswax Crayons 2

The Friday Group spent a lot of time orally exploring the crayons. Kaia and Sebastien especially enjoyed the table being low enough to crawl on. Theo manages to use those teeth to get a bit of crayon.

The Friday Group also spent a lot of time exploring the other materials around the play area.

Bryce chomps on a rubber sqeak toy.

Theo checks out the rocking boat.

Kaia crawled around with the sensory tubes filled with water and oil.

Sebastien visited the sensory bin with Theo.

Thursday Group - Drawing with Beeswax Crayons

No matter when Crayons or drawing utensils are introduced to young children, there will be a period of exploring the tool with one's mouth even if they are able to purposefully make marks.

Xavier figures out right away how to use the crayons. Anna (his mom) indicated that he hasn't used crayons before but he holds objects with the tips of his fingers and makes a writing motion quite often.



I found Max's exploration of the crayons quite interesting. He would pick up one in each hand, look closely at them, and then drop one and chew on the other. Every time he spotted another crayon he would repeat the process. Amy (his mom) called this "the grass is always greener" syndrome. I just found it fascinating, like he was really thoughtfully choosing one over the other. Max also kept offering his crayon to Sebastien. Watch in the following video as he tries to tempt Sebastien into taking his crayon not once but twice...is he trying to make a trade or just get his attention?



Zadie tries out some banging and back and forth motions with the crayons.

Friday Group - Drawing with Beeswax Crayons

After returning from a four week break I decided to introduce drawing with Stockmar beeswax crayons to get everyone reacquainted with the environment. I prefer these crayons because they are very responsive to children's movements so even the slightest pressure on paper creates a mark. I presented the children (just Kaia & Sebastien during this session) with both traditional shaped crayons (minus the paper wrapping) and rectangular block crayons. Both variations allow children to find many different ways to make a mark. From the ages 6-12 months most children explore crayons/writing utensils orally. At this oral stage of exploration, I like to simply point out when the children make a mark on the paper thus drawing their attention to what the material's purpose and how they influence it.

Since the group is becoming more mobile I also included a sensory bin (clear storage bin) full of fabric, ribbon and containers. Knowing Sebastien and Kaia both are really interested in doing laundry (basically taking clothes in and out of the laundry bin or drawers) I thought this would be very engaging.