notice board

[terrydoo73]

I bought a cheap cork board tonight in Tesco's for just over £1. I thought I could use it to display themes for the month and try and encourage my children to think and maybe even participate in craft activities.

Having said that today I had a little mitten for each of them to use paint dabbers on and then stick on some snowflakes - did one to show them how to do it and my 4 year old looked at it for a moment then said "can I cut it up"!! I was a bit taken aback and just said "now if you had just done a lovely picture for your mum would you really like me to cut it up?" She just laughed at me and I could see she still wanted to cut the picture up. I told her there were mittens in the basket and why didn't she colour one in for her mum. She didn't take me up on the offer!

Anyway I thought I could try and get them to do some of their own work to stick on the board and they would then be able to tell mum that was theirs! I was thinking of doing one display for January but haven't got a clue where to start! Does anyone have any ideas - do you put some sort of background on first then add pictures or what?

[sarah707]

Craft isn't about the finished product...

It's about exploring the glue and making patterns in it, finger painting when you are 'supposed' to be using paint pads because that is what you want to do, cutting things up because you are practising your scissor skills at the moment, wanting to add sand to paint to make a texture...

The notice board is a lovely idea ... I often take photos of the children (back views) exploring craft and put those up with explanations for the parents of what they are learning

[terrydoo73]

Never thought of taking photos of the children Sarah - thanks.

Did put up a few ideas on the board like a snowman, a mitten and a snowflake and they both did all of them when they saw what they were supposed to do with a little help of course! When I looked around though the youngest had cut his snowman into a thousand pieces!

[sandy64]

hi sorry had to laugh my lo is scissor happy at mo no matter what she does wants to cut up but at least shes learning new skills. i have 2 boards 1 i cover it first then add a border it has the topic on ie jan with lo work on and photos another is smaller i have as parents notice board it has monthly planning on any courses im doing that month and anythink parents need to know.

[Chell]

Never thought of taking photos of the children Sarah - thanks.

Did put up a few ideas on the board like a snowman, a mitten and a snowflake and they both did all of them when they saw what they were supposed to do with a little help of course! When I looked around though the youngest had cut his snowman into a thousand pieces!

This is called play annihilation, is is part of the play cycle if you want to Google it.

'Child can and will annihilate their play to enable them to leave, or start a new game. Playworkers can find this strange. We would like to preserve the items they have produced to show parents. When the play frame has no more meaning for the child, when the play value is finished then the play frame is finsihed. Children should be allowed to destroy the den, model, etc if they have finished playing with it'.

I've just been doing homework so have these course notes with me, we learned about the play cycle recently and how children will often 'ruin' their lovely painting by covering it in black paint. As Sarah said, take a quick photo as evidence before they do something like this.

[julie w]

I have found that many children aren't allowed to use scissors at home, so they love it when they can use them with me.