Coloring, Covering, and Self-Image
Markers: The Origin of a Curricular Arc
A couple of weeks ago, we noticed that the children were showing a strong, collective interest in drawing on themselves with markers. At first we didn’t think much of it, but after a couple days of similar play, we quickly realized that the children must be using this to explore specific curiosities to meet certain needs. Each time they used markers and paper, they would begin to draw on their hands and quickly move to their arms, their legs, and for some, their bellies! Their persistence and consistency was astonishing. With this in mind, we sat down to brainstorm. What might be the deeper motivator behind this behavior and how can we best support it? We considered:
Self-expression and self-image
The children may be asking themselves, “What do I look like?” (To myself? To others? What defines me? How do I express my developing personality?)
We remembered that some of this marker work originated in our pirate play with Ronin and Berkeley giving themselves “pirate tattoos” and “costumes.”
In the Front Yard, Berkeley and Lucas had begun to take turns pretending to style their friends’ hair. With Miah’s help, the group also began to use markers to paint each other’s nails.
Autonomy and power
Exercising autonomy and agency is so important to young children. We see their pride as they begin to do things independently, like serving themselves food or using the restroom. We considered this area of development as a motivator for their marker work, as, for instance, Berkeley would often ask, “Can I color on myself?” Each time, a teacher would respond with something like, “Up to you Berkeley, it is your body!” which seems to be an encouraging response. While young children aren’t able to control every aspect of their lives, here we might be seeing them latch on to an area over which they are finding the most control: their own bodies.
Proprioceptive development and spatial awareness
By coloring along the lengths of their arms and legs as well as under their shirts, the children may be exploring where their body fits in space, its size, how it moves, etc.
Implementing Curriculum
Using our bodies as a canvas:
With these three possible motivators in mind, we designed invitations to play. We began with opportunities to expand upon their salon-themed play, with self-expression and self-image development in mind. We created a nail salon with watercolor paint, and a makeup station with mirrors and empty makeup containers for pretending. We moved into using face paint crayons and mirrors, and eventually into temporary tattoos. To our surprise, the temporary tattoos engaged the children the most (even more than the face paints!), and they used an entire pack in a single day! Exercising their fine motor skills, they became quite skilled at peeling off the backing, wringing out the sponge, and holding very still while applying tattoos independently. Each child counted patiently aloud to ten before peeling back the paper to find their new tattoo underneath.
Self portraiture:
As the children continued to express themselves, we moved into self portraiture in steps. For our first step, we provided a paper with just an outline of a head, loose parts, and glue. We asked the children questions like, “What do you look like?”, “What color are your eyes?” etc. They used this opportunity not only to reflect on their personal appearance, but to practice their symbolic representation and to form an understanding of the orientation of human features. Berkeley, for instance, decided to create her own head shape with marker rather than using the one provided. Some children made the connection between faces, appearances, and emotional expression, for instance, Ronin explained of his work, “This is a picture of me sad,” while holding it next to his face and frowning.
Next, we provided a paper that featured a photograph of themselves and some watercolor paint. The children were able to use color and shape to represent their development of personality. We asked the children questions such as, “What colors do you like best?” and “What belongs next to you?” Berkeley explained that her blue shape represents a car, because she rides in cars. Miah used quick motions to paint his page, explaining that he is fast.
The next time, we gave them a paper with a photograph of just their faces on them and more loose parts with glue. This time, the children created and decorated the shapes of their bodies. This encouraged a reflection on the human form and physical abilities with their artistic expression.
Lastly, Lindsey helped each child trace their body shapes onto a big piece of cardboard -- almost every child made an outline. It was tricky to lay still, but worth it as they were able to stand up and reflect upon their shape and size from a new, intriguing perspective. We have been adding layers of decoration as the children continue to interact with their tracings.
Gross motor exploration:
As we continued exploring proprioceptive and kinesthetic development, we implemented a few new gross motor activities. Emily has been teaching exciting new gymnastics skills to the children such as a forward roll, a backward roll, and even how to fall down safely! We had a two-day “falling course” in which we learned the three steps to falling safely (bend your knees, hands in front, look at your feet!). We had so much fun gently pushing each other to the ground in a controlled environment where we again got to explore bodily autonomy, control, movement, and spatial awareness. We also took this opportunity to introduce different types of balls into our front yard play, which has been a lot of fun.
Reflecting and Discovering Schema
After implementing all of this curricula, we observed in an attempt to narrow down which of the motivators behind the initial marker work may be the most important to the children and their development. What we found took us down a new path entirely. There was a fourth, even clearer theme in the group interest besides self expression, autonomy, and spatial awareness. We noticed that the play that seemed to be most meaningful to them always included some form of covering or layering:
We introduced temporary tattoos and face paints as a form of outward self expression, but the tattoos were much more exciting to the children than the face paints. We now believe that this is because of the covering and layering properties of their application.
Lukas and Berkeley often lead group games with our baby dolls that always involve wrapping them in blankets or hiding them under their shirts (“a baby in my tummy”). Interestingly, the children don’t seem to be deepening their understanding of the concept of pregnancy when they play this game, but rather focus more on the concealing and wrapping of the dolls.
A new interest has begun to arise in fort and dwelling building, especially with fabric and blankets. The children have taken this a step further by consistently wrapping themselves up tightly inside the fabric whenever they can, or draping them over their heads and playing “ghost.”
During our self portrait work, the gluing and collaging seemed to be the most meaningful part of the work to the children, even above developing an understanding of their self image.
…and the list goes on…
It was fascinating to realize that doll play, collaging, and fort building, while seeming so different, all had a clear commonality with the initial work of drawing on their skin with markers in their covering and layering properties. After this discovery, we began to talk more about the theory of play schema.
A schema is a theme or pattern in the behavior of a child’s play, and we’re clearly seeing one here. We know that children naturally use play as a way to further their development, so when we observe a working schema, we can assume there’s some important developmental exploration happening! This pattern of play that we’re seeing in our Olive Branch kiddos involving covering, layering, wrapping, etc. is typically referred to as the Enveloping Schema. We sat down for another brainstorming session, this time focusing on enveloping and got to work on setting some invitations.
We set up a collage area, where the children could cut pieces of paper and glue them however they wanted, however, they were much more interested and engaged with the sticker collage station we set up the next day. Historically, we hadn’t viewed stickers as a particularly rich art material and didn’t use them often. Unlike paint or clay, there really isn’t much you can do with stickers. After observing the children working through Enveloping Schema, however, we realized that stickers have a special and unique quality: the ability to layer! We busted out the stickers and, sure enough, these kids went to town. They completely covered their papers with sticker after sticker, layer after layer. Wow!
Since this mind-blowing realization of schema in the children’s work, we’ve been doing our best to ensure that each day’s invitations include materials that provide the ability to envelop, layer, and cover. Be sure to visit the classroom on the last Monday of this month to see the children’s work on display, and stay tuned to see where our work takes us from here!