FEATHERSTONE Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK BLOOMSBURY, FEATHERSTONE and the Feather logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2021 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Text copyright © Laura England, 2021 Photographs © Shutterstock, except for pages 6(bl), 7(b), 10, 16, 17(t), 18(bl), 19(t), 23, 24, 25(r), 27, 28(bl), 29(bl, tr), 32(t), 33(b), 35, 37(t), 38(bl, br), 40, 42, 45, 46 (bl), 48(bl), 57, 58, 59(bl, tr), 60(l), 61(l), 62, 63 © Laura England; pages 6(t), 15(b), 48(tr), 50, 53(b) from Little Angels Schoolhouse; pages 9(t), 18(t, br), 21(b), 36, from Woodhill Primary School © Suzanne Plunkett www.suzanneplunkett.com; page 53(t) © S. Jacobs Laura England has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work Quotations from National Curriculum documents used in this publication are approved under an Open Government Licence: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: PB: 978-1-4729-6305-5; ePDF: 978-1-4729-6304-8; ePub: 978-1-4729-6303-1 2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1 Series design: Lynda Murray Printed and bound in India by Replika Press Pvt. Ltd.
Paper from responsible sources
Paper from responsible sources
All papers used by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc are natural, recyclable products from wood grown in well managed forests and other sources. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters
Contents Introduction...............................................4
Technology..............................................41
What is mark making?.................................. 4 Mark making and writing............................. 6 The benefits of mark making...................... 7
Incorporating technology into your continuous provision..................................42 Mark making with cameras.......................43 Mark making with light and shadows.........................................................45
Mark making opportunities in your continuous provision............................. 11 The characteristics of effective learning....................................12 Role play...................................................13 Child-led play................................................ 14 Deconstructed role play............................ 16 Small world play........................................... 18 Role play scenarios for mark making....... 19
Construction.......................................... 23 Large-scale construction...........................24 Construction and mark making...............25
Nature.......................................................27 Exploring texture and pattern...................28 Taking equipment outside.........................29 Early writing...................................................30 Mark making with natural materials........32
Sand and water...................................... 47 Sand on its own...........................................48 Water on its own..........................................49 Sand and water together...........................50
Malleable play..........................................51 Play dough making stations......................52 Early writing ideas........................................53 Mark making with play dough and clay..........................................................54 Making stamps..............................................55
Loose parts..............................................57 What is a loose part?...................................58 Loose parts and physical skills..................59 Loose parts and mark making................. 60 Loose parts and early writing....................62
Further reading...................................... 64
Art..............................................................35 Combining adult-led and child-led play.................................................36 Large-scale art.............................................. 37 Transient art...................................................38 Powder paint station...................................39 Inspiring centrepieces............................... 40
Looking for Learning: Mark Making
3
Role play
R
ole play offers lots of opportunities for mark making due to the wealth of scenarios that can be conjured up. You and the children in your setting can create a home corner, a doctor’s surgery, a spaceship, a bear’s cave, an explorer’s den and much more. Each of these will allow you to incorporate some sort of mark making activity, whether that be a sensory mark making experience, creative mark making or a prompt for early writing practice.
Looking for Learning: Mark Making
13
SMALL WORLD PLAY In addition to considering a larger role play area we can also think about using small world toys in role play. Again, children can create a small world area to reflect their individual interests. As discussed earlier, small world play is perfect for sensory mark making. One idea is to create bases for the small world play using lots of different materials and media. For example:
• Crushed up cereals to form the base of a farmyard-themed role play
• Blue jelly for a sea-themed role play. You can create this using gelatine (or a vegetarian alternative), water and blue food colouring
• Coloured sand for a fairy kingdom-themed role play. Large rolls of paper or large pieces of coloured card are also perfect for children to create their own surfaces or for mapping out where the different small world pieces will go. To use the fairy kingdom example above, before we put the coloured sand down we first used a big piece of paper to map out where the different-coloured sands would go and which area of the kingdom this would represent. For example, we marked an area on the paper to show where the green sand would go, to represent a park. For younger children, I wrote out what they told me. Older children had a go at labelling some parts of the kingdom by themselves.
18
Looking for Learning: Mark Making
Art
A
rt is an important aspect of my provision because it can be tailored to every child’s age and stage of development as well as adapted to suit particular interests or schemas. This makes art the perfect activity for every child. Art resources can be picked up very cheaply or even for free and you can
save old fabric, cardboard boxes, paint and many other things you might be tempted to throw in the bin. Art enables children to explore, experiment, discover and create in an open-ended way which allows them to build independence and confidence.
COMBINING ADULT-LED AND CHILD-LED PLAY Open-ended play allows children to learn and decide on outcomes. That said, I do think art activities should be provided in two ways. Firstly, it should be provided as something the children can explore freely. Secondly, I think it is also important for adults to demonstrate art techniques. Focussing on the process rather than the outcome can sometimes be a controversial issue in the early years. Many practitioners believe that when a group of children ‘churn out’ the same hand-printed cards for Christmas there is little learning taking place. Although I would much rather see children being creative and deciding how to create a card by themselves, I can see the benefit of an adult demonstrating different techniques. This might be as simple as showing how to create a handprint with paint or how to create other effects with paint, such as splodges or splatters. Some children will confidently experiment and figure out techniques for themselves, whereas others will need a little more encouragement. This is especially true for children that have previously been told to sit and paint nicely rather than given the freedom to experiment. The more we encourage children to test different techniques, the more we will build their confidence, enabling them to gradually start experimenting themselves.
36
Looking for Learning: Mark Making
I also find art is a great area for adult-led teaching because you are still able to be influenced by a child’s thinking. Some people think that an adult-led session has to include a carefully-planned activity where the practitioner teaches the child in a step-by-step manner, but it really doesn’t have to be done this way. Instead, the adult can lead an activity that is openended. You could, for instance, provide something as simple as different-sized paintbrushes, paint and paper on a table. Some children may focus on painting with the brushes, some may focus on testing out the different brushes and the marks they mark, some might finger paint, some might mix paints, and so on. Whatever the child is doing, they are engaging in some form of mark making and your presence is helpful to scaffold their ideas. Art really is an area where practitioners can provide a mixture of child- and adult-led activities. The adult can create the focus of the activity. For example, the focus could be on the words ‘big’ and ‘small’ and you can show this by adding different-sized paintbrushes to the painting table. Then you can use the children’s thoughts and ideas to scaffold. For example, a child might decide to use only one paintbrush so you can scaffold by talking about the sizes of the marks they are creating, combining both your focus and the child’s focus. Try out some of the following art setups and see how easy it is to combine both child-led and adult-led play here.
LARGE-SCALE ART When thinking about mark making there are so many more possibilities besides small-scale artwork, such as painting or drawing a singular picture. There are lots of ways we can use art to build children’s gross motor skills before we even think about developing their fine motor skills. Before you consider asking children to hold a paintbrush or a pencil, think about how they can use their whole bodies to create marks. Here are some ideas.
• Walking and crawling: Tape large pieces of paper to the floor and allow children to paint their feet or hands and walk or crawl all over the paper.
• Whole bodies: The children could experiment with painting different parts of their bodies such as their legs or arms and roll their whole bodies over a large piece of paper to see what marks they can make.
• Reaching and stretching: Cover a whole wall with paper and let children use their hands to create marks with water or paint, reaching up and smearing across the paper to create arcs. This helps children to build up the muscles in their shoulders, upper back and arms. In our setting we have sometimes allowed children to mark make on a window, using paint thinned out with water.
Looking for Learning: Mark Making
37
Loose parts
L
oose parts play is one of the simplest types of play we can offer to children and I would argue that it is one of the forms of play that offers the most benefits. And because there is scope for many things to be used in loose parts play (many of which are freely available) it’s perfect for tight budgets. Because loose parts are inclusive to children of all ages and stages, I wanted to look at ways we might use them to enhance mark making, or use mark making to enhance loose parts. As far as I’m concerned, if the children thrive and learn using loose parts then let’s put mark making alongside this rather than pulling the children away to do mark making as a separate activity. We can think about mark making through sensory elements, the physical aspects of mark making, the creative aspect of mark making and mark making in terms of writing.
WHAT IS A LOOSE PART? Try collecting some of the following within your setting or ask parents to save these for you:
• Old tyres • Pieces of fabric • Cardboard boxes • Egg boxes • Bottle tops • Jar lids • Tin cans (opened using a safety tin opener) • Buttons. These resources can be used in a myriad of ways from junk modelling to creating patterns; the opportunities for learning are endless. Firstly, there is the most obvious mark making with loose parts. As children explore natural loose parts
58
Looking for Learning: Mark Making
in sand or play dough they are making impressions in the material, they are moving the sand to form different marks and placing loose parts in a certain way to create pictures or structures in line with their interests or objectives. Younger children can explore mark making during loose parts play if you provide a tray filled with a malleable material such as shaving foam, jelly or custard. Invite the children to manipulate the material with the loose parts. When I say that anything can be a loose part, I mean it! This can include materials such as water that the children collect outside or mud that the children can explore in a gardening area. Children will often show a fascination with water, especially exploring its properties by splattering it onto slabs or decking. This exploration will create marks and is the perfect time for practitioners to take the opportunity, when children are fully engaged, to further explore mark making by building on this intrinsically motivated exploration. See the chapter on sand and water play for more ideas.