Same Invitation, Different Learning Processes and Outcomes

So yesterday post afternoon naps for both girls, we were out in our yard playing for the whole afternoon til just before dinner. Miss 2 asked to do some painting so I simply set up an easy primary colours painting invitation for her on a paper plate so I could keep my eye on bubs and stop her from eating sand and dirt if I had to.

When I saw what the toddler had created, I was amazed that ONE, it didn’t become an entire piece of murky brown mess, in fact she made some new colours out of what I gave her. TWO, that she took her time to cover the entire piece of paper which she usually never bothers to do. And THREE, she told me after she finished that “it looks like a parrot mummy!” 😍😍😍

With yesterday’s invitation to paint, I CHOSE the simplest set up i could think of, mainly because I was also supervising bubs playing outside.

Well when we were out again this afternoon, the toddler asked to do painting again and SPECIFICALLY ASKED for ”red, blue and yellow, like yesterday mummy”.

Now with yesterday’s painting she had done, I mentioned how I was surprised that she didn’t make a murky brown mess and that she took the time to cover the piece of paper and that she saw a parrot in her painting AFTER she finished. Even though she had made some new colours in the process yesterday, I assume that she didn’t realise what she had done as her focus was just on the process of painting itself. Her learning came after the process when she made connections between the abstract and concrete by labelling what she saw she had UNKNOWINGLY created.

Today however, the learning was totally in the process. If you click here to see the videos (which I’m so glad I managed to take), you’ll notice how she’s INTENTIONALLY trying to make new colours (“I’m making so many different colours”), and INTENTIONALLY trying to make a picture that she has planned in her head (”Why are there so many apples on the apple tree?”)

Learning comes in so many different forms. It’s not JUST painting. It’s not JUST play.

So I’m going to say YES to her wanting to paint, even if she asks up to 10 times in a day 🙂