Yeah! Sophie was back to her “cooperative” self today during Art Time. I thought she has become “lukewarm” towards Art permanently based on her performance last week. But she was quite happy to paint and she did not fuss much when I left her alone to finish up the craft.
Although it is quite common for "E" to be associated with "Elephant", it is not easy to combine the two. I ended up making the "elephant" stand on its hind legs, like a circus elephant. It worked.
Sophie decided against using the rubber stamps (blue paint) initially and used her fingers instead. That was fine by me since she genuinely want to paint with her fingers. After all, it was really rare for her to confine her painting to the letter; usually she would deliberately paint the dining table and avoid the letter.
Sophie definitely knows what she wants. She kept pushing the art materials and tools away after some time. I had to stop the video to figure out what she wanted. Finally, I figured out that she was trying to tell me she was already done with the letter and she wanted to paint the “elephant” next. So I quickly mixed a batch of grey and let her use the roller on the “elephant”.
Again, one of those rare moments that Sophie could attach a plastic eye on the animal with minimum fuss or adjustment. I am so glad…
I wonder if Sophie would be confused by the usual pose of the "elephant". I added the decorations on its head to make it more like a circus elephant. Fortunately, she was still able to tell that it was an "en-fern" (she cannot pronounce "elephant") and trumpeted very well...
Lately, we noticed that Sophie would show empathy and compassion towards anyone in distress, especially if the person is crying or in pain. For instance, we could often hear our neighbour’s baby cry in the day, she would respond by making a sad face and say, “baby cry…sad” and “help”. And if we appeared sad to her, she would come console us with a hug, a kiss or a gentle caress.
Today, Papa used a piece of wet tissue (after wiping Sophie’s mouth) as a “puppet” and pretended to be sad. Watch how Sophie made a sad face and attempted to console the piece of wet tissue (Papa’s arm). I am so amazed that she is able to show empathy and compassion at such a young age. Maybe she was just mimicking how we respond to her when she was upset, but nevertheless, I am so so very proud of her.
I thought of not posting since we did this the previous week on 20 August (I misread the theme...) and the subsequent one we did on Thursday (27 August) was not very successful. However, I guess I wanted some sort of closure for the Open-ended Art (August). I think it would be tough to participate in September's themes because Sophie is too young to do mosaic (maybe modified version).
Anyway, Sophie was not in her best today... Sophie is quite obsessed with Hi-5 nowadays and she has just realised she can create the Hi-5 logo by drawing around her hands. However, she lacks the motor skills to do it properly so she wants me to do it for her. Clearly, she lost whatever little bit of interest she had left soon after. And that kind of explains the video...
End Product
I guess she prefers paint and markers to crayons because the colours are much duller or lighter. I bet she would like oil pastels better but I do not want to try washing that off her clothes or the dining table. So we would stick to crayons for now.
I like this set of puzzles the moment I saw it a couple of weeks ago at Tanglin Mall but I did not buy it because I was not sure if Sophie could understand how to play with it. Eventually I gave in and bought it for her. Sophie loves the puzzle although she still cannot arrange and fit the elephants correctly into their layers. Now I understand why such puzzles and toys are so super expensive. They are great because they engage the child without all the battery operated sound effects and lights. I also intend to use the elephants to do teach her colours, "size" words (big, bigger, biggest and small, smaller, smallest) and even sequencng based on size. Good toys ought to be like that... many uses and ways to play.
Remember the sensory bottles that I made for Sophie? I was not sure then what they were meant to do for her although she enjoyed looking at them. Lately, Sophie was able to look at the "slow motion" bottle and say "slow" and then pick up the "blink blink" bottle and say "fast". I must have used those words every time I showed them to her. So I am now very convinced that sensory activities are important to children and for Sophie, she learns best if she plays, explores and discovers meanings in things on her own. It is definitely not helpful to have a "Mama Vulture" hovering above her and breathing down her neck all the time.
Every weekend, we would comb the shopping malls for stuff that we can use as teaching aids. And last weekend, we found some rubber fruit at 50 cts each so we bought 6 of them. I was actually looking for small animal figurines but the cheap ones too ugly (grossly inaccurate also) and the beautiful ones are too expensive. I suppose I would eventually buy Toobs because they are quite affordable and nicely made, not to mention they have almost all the common animals. Sophie is starting to appreciate small figurines so I want to get her some animal replicas... I just hope Sophie will not try to "eat" them though.
Anyway, I froze the rubber fruit in ice cubes for Sophie's water play. I could make 10 cubes but I only had 6 fruit so I added food colouring in the rest of the ice cubes. Then, I put them all in a bucket to entice Sophie when she was ready to do her water play.
It was an instant hit! She was fascinated by both the rubber fruit and the fact that they were all suspended in extremely cold and hardened water. And when she saw the ice slowly melt away exposing parts of the rubber fruit, she became even more intrigued. It was quite fun just watching her make sense of her new "toys".
Then the food colouring started dissolving in the water and Sophie became quite concerned. I guess she must have thought it was dirty or messy. Very soon, the water became greyish blue (I forgot about that!) and we could no longer see the rubber fruit inside. Well, at least she was not drinking the water! I gave her some time to look for those fruit without actually looking... it was quite educational.
However, I decided that we would both be more comfortable with clear water so I got rid of the coloured water and refilled the tub. Then I asked Sophie if she could hand me each of the fruit. To my surprise, she could hand me the correct fruit that I had asked for. I have never consciously taught her "strawberry" or "lemon" yet she knew them. It must have been "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle and "A Color Of His Own" by Leo Lionni.
All in all, everything went rather well. Sophie enjoyed it so much that she climbed into the tub and played with the water. I wonder if she would ask for bath instead from now on...
I had wanted to restrict Sophie to a couple of tools when she was playing with Playdoh, but I did not have the heart to do it. She enjoys freedom too much. In fact, I saw a tinge of sadness in her eyes when I tried to put away some of the tools (even those she was not actively using). So, I guess I have to make the change a gradual one. Meanwhile, she was using the cutters more today because I kept encouraging her to make animal shapes with them. When she was done, she stuck the animal shapes on our window.
While she was busy putting up her animal shapes, I got the letter "D" and "d" done with jumping clay.
I am sooooo super lazy... I picked the easiest one to do with Sophie and still, it did not look quite like a donut in the end. How totally embarassing!
And Sophie seemed to have grown rather bored with markers, crayons and paint... or is it just doing this type of craft? I hope not. She still has quite a few letters left to complete.
At least she still enjoyed squeezing glitter glue out from the tube... after we have made enough marks on the letter "d". Gosh, it looked really bad from my perspective... I was hoping the glitter would make it look better. It did not.
In order to keep Sophie engaged, I sacrificed the orange paint and its bottle. I think the brush probably "died" too! Papa always says that Sophie has to learn through play and exploration... that is just the way she is. She just loses interest if I do direct teaching and she does not respond to our questioning well. She prefers to volunteer her understanding through our interaction and play. For instance, she would tell "Momo" (her plush Elmo) where his eyes, nose and mouth are, but when I pointed to her nose and asked her what it was... she refused to answer me and walked away.
It is really tough to engage her because she does not like conventional teaching (the kind I am used to) and she has a mind of her own. Although she "obeys" me (especially when I get angry), she is totally not concerned with the consequences of defying my "orders". She loves to run amok. No, she is definitely confident that we love her and no matter what she does or where she goes, we will always be there for her. While she may seem lively and cute to others, she is probably going to be a nightmare for teachers and her mama.
I have always known that Sophie can get very frustrated and impatient if she does not get what she wants or achieve what she has intended. Usually, I would just leave her be when she was upset or cranky.
However, I tried to talk to her a couple of days ago about her anger. She was very angry when she could not fit the pieces of a puzzle together. She threw a big fuss and took out her anger on the puzzle pieces. So I told her, "It's ok, just try again... don't be angry, Mama help you, ok?" And we did the puzzle together...
Today, she still got upset when she could not fit the 3D puzzles together, but after whining and crying... she actually did some positive self talk! I heard her say,"Try... (mumble mumble) Try... (mumble mumble)... Yeah! (when she succeeded)" I am so amazed! I think it is fascinating that Sophie could manage her own emotions or at least she tried.
We had a busy weekend and we were still recovering from it so we kept the craft simple this week. It did not help when Ah Gong informed us that our family cat is down with UTI again. Although it is not a big deal for a 10-year-old tomcat to get UTI, it is terribly expensive to see the vet ($500+ the last time we sent him to the vet in April) and he is sooooooooo aggressive and impossible to capture. We are all struggling to think of a good way to lure it into the pet taxi.
Sophie did the letter “D” while I made the “head”, “wing” and “feet” of the duck. It looked a little plain so I added a plastic eye and some feathers. I thought of attaching some feathers only on its wings, but they ended up all over the letter.
Sophie was clearly intrigued by feathers and I had to keep the end product away from her until the glue dried completely.
End Product - "D" For Duck
We finished the craft in 15 minutes so Sophie was totally not satisfied with her "Messy Time". Thus, we started painting on the dining table together. I painted letters and she tried to name them. She could name almost all the letters now although we have not done all the letters yet. The only problematic ones are "W" (two syllables) and "Z" (looks like "N").
I guess I would always have a soft spot for Sophie. I know she likes to do pretend play with plastic food so when I saw this set of toys on 30% sale, I could not resist buying. They can be played like plastic fruit with detachable magnetic slices (except the banana and strawberry). Each slice also hasa number and its corresponding number of seeds (except the banana and strawberry) so they can be used to teach numbers 1 - 5. I must say Sophie loves it, especially the blue bowl (she uses it as a helmet).
I woke up a wee bit earlier today to think about how we could still make it for this week's Open-ended Art - Yellow & Mixed Medium. Then I remembered the shaving cream we had bought last week for Sophie. No, she does not need to shave. We got it specially for her to do shaving cream art since Papa also does not use shaving cream. I mixed yellow fingerpaint and white glue with shaving cream in a tray and stirred a little before putting it aside for Sophie later.
She started with doodling on a piece of cardboard with a crayon. I hoped Sophie would make the cardboard background look a little more interesting with yellow-orange scribbles.
I know shaving cream art is typically done with hands and fingers, not a brush. But I needed to stir to mix it and it would a waste not to use the mixture on the brush. So, I let Sophie paint with the brush for a while. Apparently, she loved stirring the mixture more than painting with it. Eventually, I had to order her to use her hands and remove the brush. And I let her add more yellow fingerpaint to the mixture since it looked a little pale.
As usual, the fun began after we had completed our art for the day. I gave Sophie more shaving cream in the tray and set her free. Initially, she was not quite sure what to do. She experimented a little and then she went totally wild.
Great experience but a lot of cleaning up to do for me… No regrets. The end product looked really good and puffy. However, I would add more white glue next time if I want the paint to puff even more. For more Open-ended Art projects, check out Teaching My Little Bookworm.
Every now and then, Sophie would take a book and name the animals or objects in there... or at least those she has already learnt. Recently, she likes to "assess" us. She would point to the animals or objects, look at us and wait for us to name them. At first, we thought she wanted us to tell her what they were. Then we suspected she actually knew all those animals and objects. We confirmed it by giving her the wrong names deliberately. She would give us a look of disbelief and then point to the animal or object that we named instead.
Sometimes I would complain to Papa that it is really tough to teach Sophie anything because she is an impatient toddler with super short attention span. I know toddlers are typically like that but I am an impatient mommy too! It does not help when she seems to have inherited my temperament as well.
Sophie would get frustrated every time she tried to fit the puzzles together because she could not control her fingers well enough to adjust the pieces. She still wanted to do it though. In fact, I think it is a good decision to leave some puzzles on the shelves for her to try every now and then. It is less threatening and she can decide for herself when and for how long she wants to do it.
I love it when she managed to calm herself down and put away the blocks after throwing a fit. Weeks of teaching, practising and nagging finally worked on her. Although she does not always put away her toys after use, she knows she has to and she will do it when she is on a good mood.
It has been quite a crazy week for us and I am way behind in our blogging. Papa just bought a new laptop for Mama so there is a lot of installing, updating and transferring of files to be done. Also, we are recently cleaning up the house so everything is chaotic here.
Somehow I have misread the entry on this week's Open-ended Art and ended up doing the theme (Yellow & Crayons) for next week with Sophie. I pasted strips of black paper onto a piece of drawing paper to make it a little more interesting to scribble on. I thought crayons on paper was not so challenging since all Sophie can do now is doodle and scribble.
As it turned out, Sophie was not quite used to drawing on a surface like that. I think she prefers a blank sheet of paper or no paper at all. It took a while for her to finally start drawing. Even then, she was not too keen.
In fact, Sophie was more comfortable with drawing on the back of the drawing paper. I think it looks better than the actual art piece...
The effect was not quite as exciting as I had hoped. The crayon did not work too well on black construction paper. Nevertheless, it was a good experience for Sophie. And I found that she prefers markers and paint to crayons because their colours are more vibrant. She would probably like oil pastels better.
End Product - Yellow & Crayons
Go to Teaching My Little Bookworm to check out the correct theme for this week's Open-ended Art and see what the other mummies have done with their little ones.
Sophie was unusually tamed during her Playdoh time so I could make her “F” and “f” with jumping clay just beside her. However, I realised that she might have too many accessories and tools around to practise her skills. Next week, I would give her some general tools and one or two cutters at a time.
After half an hour of Playdoh, we switched to water play. Since we are going to do this every week, we bought her some bath toys and I intend to make some too. This time, I gave her some strainer cups instead of normal toy cups so she could not really drink the water. Judging from her expression, I am sure she enjoyed herself and that is good enough for now.
Mama's good childhood friend is expecting her second daughter due this coming December. We spoke on the telephone and she asked me if I was planning for No. 2. I was quick to say "NO" but I wonder if I could live with making Sophie "the only child". Sure I would be even more stressed out than ever and I can most definitely kiss my career bye-bye for the next decade... yet the thought lingers. Despite the ordeal I went through, I still entertain the possibility of going through it again. Why? Am I masochistic? Or simply insane?
The power of champagne grapes cannot be underestimated… Sophie, who has difficulty self-feeding, ate a whole cup of it with a spoon and minimal spillage. I was so amazed. It started when I gave her a cup of champagne grapes to show Ah Gong and Ah Mah how she could eat with her forefinger and thumb. Sophie had other ideas in mind… as usual. She took her toy spoon and started scooping grapes into her mouth. Apparently, she CAN feed herself but she is so fussy with food that she will only feed herself food she likes.
Excited about her new found skill, I let her do it again during dinner. She was so eager to eat the grapes that she did not mind my camera in her face. Sophie also figured that if she held the cup closer to her mouth, she could minimise the chance of dropping her precious grapes and they would reach her mouth a lot quicker.
I wanted to test out if she could self-feed when I changed the food to yogurt. I was right. It was much harder for her to focus on feeding herself because she does not really care much for it. I think Sophie is too pampered when food is concerned. I should let her be hungry enough so that she has motivation to eat her food. Papa was very tickled when I showed him these video clips.
I did not really think much about what to make with Sophie until this morning. I thought it seemed easy enough so we should be able to finish it quickly.
I even decided to make some orchids because it is still August (National Day). However, Sophie was not in the mood for Art this morning at all. In fact, both of us have been rather lethargic lately due to the unbearable heat and thunderstorms.
She was easily distracted and she did everything in a half-hearted manner. She did not even "messed up" the dining table. Nothing seemed to engage her and move her into the right gear.
Totally uninspired, I handed her some paint and a brush in hope to reignite her passion... a little. Nope. Sophie was lost in her own world... Or she was simply not into Art today... She was in "I want and I want it now!" mood.
So poor Mama had to finish everything else for her. Fortunately, there was not a lot to be done. just some finishing touches and cutting (she does not do cutting anyway).
After putting everything together, I stood back to admire it. I felt quite happy that it did not look half as bad as I had thought. Even Sophie likes it.
Finally, I made Sophie her sensory bottles. She liked it so much that she kept saying "fun" when she got her hands on them. However, I am not so sure what exactly she liked - the effects or the bottles. I have a feeling she just enjoyed playing with the bottles...
"Ocean Wave" Bottle
I put water, J & J baby oil (Sophie is allergic to it so it has been left there for a while) and blue food colouring. I could have put in some glitter dust but I had none and I was reluctant to buy some just for this.
"Slow Motion" Bottle I did not have corn syrup or hair gel so I used shampoo (the whole bottle). Unfortunately, the liquid is not really transparent and I could not get rid of the bubbles yet. Anyway, I put whatever I can find into the bottle e.g. buttons, porcelain beads, rhinestones and plastic decorative items.
"Blink Blink" Bottle
I did not know what else to do, so I just filled the bottle with water and dropped some confetti (leftover from our wedding in 2005... I knew there would be some use for it someday!) in.
I sealed the caps to the bottles with a hot glue gun and masking tape. Hopefully, they are secure enough for Sophie.
I thought of making a few fish and attached them onto the letter "F" and call it a day. However, Sophie already knows "fish" and she is beginning to recognise the animals in Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? by Bill Martin Jr. and there is a flamingo among the animals in the book.
I think Sophie can actually tell colours apart although she still does not appear so. When we used yellow paint, she would somehow paint something that could be found in that colour e.g. bird and (ba)nana. Today, she painted a horse and a fish. She probably remembered the “blue horse” in Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr., so she saw it in her painting. And the foam fish in her set of new bath toys, well one side colourful and other blue.
Although her motor skills still need some work, Sophie can actually paint or draw a circle. I think she was trying to control her hand and fingers to paint something meaningful. Somehow, she is very communicative and expressive in arts (play pretend, puppetry, art and music) but not so in normal speech with us. Perhaps she has sensed that in normal speech, we tend to be more careful and critical (using the right words to convey the right meaning etc). However, we are more relaxed and lenient with other forms of communication. Thus, she feels at ease when she expresses herself in arts.
It took a while for Sophie to finish her painting because she was so distracted by everything else. She always enjoys talking to herart piece. Fortunately, her work look quite good. She was also quite happy with what she has done.
Knowing that Sophie is sensitive about her performance, we always use lots of positive reinforcements like applauds, hugs and kisses whenever she does something good or right. We also trivialize “correction” in her speech by simply uttering the correct version and move on so that she will not dwell upon her mistake. And if she fails at doing something, I will try to say, “Can Mama help?” or “Let Mama help, ok?” so that it cushions her fall and teaches her that every now and then it is alright to seek help from others.
Soon my fingers became too sticky and "woolly" to even hold the camera. But I was able to quickly finish the craft while Sophie was fiddling around with the cotton wool stuck on her fingers.
I do not know if we are doing the right thing but I can tell that she loses confidence and stops trying whenever someone tries to “correct” her or “teach” her after she makes a mistake. Also, I try not to “test” her to check her understanding. She will volunteer what she knows (eager to please) and if she does not or walk away, it means she does not know. For instance, she points to letters she has learnt whenever she spots them. But she will never name those she has difficulty recognising like “W” and “Z”.
Anyway, I was about to leave the flamingo looking like that... then my conscience bugged me a little. Poor fellow! I should give it some fluff at least. So, I whipped out some white feathers and attached them to its body where the wing is. Not a vast improvement, but it will do.
I have been pondering and pondering if we should start gardening for Sophie. Whatever I touch tends to wither and die so I resisted the idea for the longest time. Papa, on the other hand, has green fingers apparently. So hopefully, Mr Eggplant and Miss Tomato will survive in our family. I will make it a point for Sophie to make daily contact with them and water them.
I would like Sophie to have her Papa's full concentration, care and time every now and then, especially during the weekends. So, he takes her to her Kindermusik lessons every Saturday. They would have 45 minutes together, without me shadowing around or fussing about them. Usually, I would stay away during lessons but I went to check on them 10 minute before the lesson ended today.
Encouraged by Sophie’s enthusiasm, I modified the game a little for her. I placed two pots on a tray, gave her a bigger spoon and some pom poms to transfer. She loves doing it so I let do transferring for as long as she wanted. And she could do quite well. However, she soon grew “adventurous” and started adding new features to her game. She put away the pots and transferred the pom poms from a bowl to plate. Then she poured the pom poms from the plate into the pot and tried to pick up the pom poms from the floor with two spoons. She came up with all kinds of variation to the task… While it was fun to watch, I really wanted her to stay focused and perfect the skill. So I put away everything else and kept to the basics. Unfortunately, she refused to perform anymore the moment she saw my camera.
In the afternoon, Sophie grabbed Ah Gong by his hand and “forced” him to play with her. Surprisingly, she started incorporating “pom poms scooping” into her game of cooking. Usually, she just pretended to scoop up “food” and “feed” us. And Ah Gong gladly accommodated her. What a delightful sight!
Living in an apartment is great, no major worries about landscaping or pest control (if you do not mind lizards every now and then). However, I find it really challenging to do messy work with Sophie in such an environment. We have no garden, no patio or even a balcony... just an apartment. The floor right outside our apartment is covered with ceramic tiles and the wall is painted, so we cannot even use sidewalk chalk. Also, the humid weather here promotes the growth of algae and mould if things are left wet. So, we use a hose to wash out the mess (may choke up the drainage system also), not to mention that water is expensive here.
I really want Sophie to do water play and sand play but it is almost impossible here. Especially since Sophie takes showers instead of baths. And even if we go to the beach, we must comb the area to remove the rubbish first and the sand is too coarse and hot. Before I start to sound like a whiner… I do intend to somehow create opportunities for her to play with water and sand (without getting sick or hurt).
Today, we tried to do water play using her old bath tub. I was not sure how it would go so we did it in the bathroom. We used to wash her toys together like that but today, we would just play. Unfortunately, we do not have any proper tools for water play so we made do with whatever I could find. To my horror, Sophie started drinking the water! She scooped water with her spade and drank from it. Then she poured water all over herself with the teapot and attempted to clean my bathroom wall with the sponge. Is that water play?
Okay, I decided to make it a little more skill-based. I removed everything from the tub, leaving behind the strainer. Then I dropped a couple of letters and numbers into the tub and asked her to fish them out. Nope, it did not work well. And of course, silly me actually handed her the spade back. So she started scooping water into her mouth happily. When that was not fast enough for her, she took a cup, filled it and drank to her heart’s content. At one point, I got worried because she looked like she was about stick her head into the water. Alright, that was quite enough for now, I decided.
I guess I need to establish some basic safety rules and perhaps play a few rounds with her before things can run smoothly for us. However, I think the tub idea might just work for water play. I would have to do a bit of planning before we can include it into our routine. When that can be implemented, I will work on sand play.
I wanted to make a pig mask with paper plates but the thought of mixing pink paint and cleaning up made me squeeze my brain harder for creative juices. The panda mask is the best I could come up with - minimal painting and almost mess-free.
Sophie loves bears and pandas, so she was very excited when she saw the mask. I added a black pom pom to make it even more irresistible for her. She used to call a panda "bear bear", then she began calling it "Oso" when Playhouse Disney started showing "Inspector Oso". Now, she calls it "da" (panda) at last (her utterances are still mainly monosyllabic).
Sophie was so hilarious at times. She loves puppets and plush toys, not because they are adorable but because they (actually Papa and Mama) talk and sing to her. Nowadays, she would also be the puppeteer and do what we do. I used to be quite apprehensive about finger or hand puppets and flannel boards as a teaching tool. I can say now that I am a convert. I am planning to use them for storytelling soon (I have to make them first!).
Imagine that! Sophie was having a conversation with the mask. She even tried to read "it" a book! I was so tickled by her character sometimes. She may not be as bright or "tamed" as many other toddlers, but she is very endearing. Like Papa always say after she was born, "... this kind of baby is exactly what I want... and more!" And I have to agree.
I always like the Montessori activities for training motor skills. They are very focused and effective. However, my little girl finds it too mundane and boring. She is very active and lacks the necessary patience to complete the tasks. Most of the time, she would get frustrated when she could not do it and make a mess of everything. So I thought maybe she was not much of a Montessori girl.
However, she proved me wrong today. Apparently, she can accomplish one of the Montessori tasks – transferring. She just needed me to customize it to suit her personality. In fact, she was the one who came up with this “game”. She took her “food” and “pots”, sat on the edge of her playing mat and started transferring the “tomato” (with a spoon) from Pot A to a lid and then finally to Pot B. It was definitely not easy (I tried it myself!) but judging from the look on her face... She was really determined and very focused indeed!
Sophie has been trying and trying to buckle herself since she was around 15 months old. There were times she succeeded by brute force, but she just could not get it done efficiently. Today, she did it and it was a breeze for her. She was so proud of herself that she was willing to do it again for my camera.
I was a little clueless to what we should do for Open-ended Art this week. The theme is “Mixing with Yellow” and that is so “open-ended” that anything goes. As much as I hate to admit, I am more comfortable if there is some sort of boundary. So, I chose to try out two different art projects with Sophie today.
Project I : Window Markers on (Overlay) Transparency – Yellow, Red & Blue (Mixed)
I decided that it might be easier to start with the “dry” and less messy art work first. Basically, my set of window markers has been sitting in the drawers since forever and I really want Sophie to use them before they all dry up. And of course it would not be too wise to let her draw on my windows (not when she still cannot discriminate the different types of markers). Hence, I took out some old transparencies and let her draw with the window markers, one colour at a time. Using the overlay method (little old school me), I hoped to see some “green”, “purple” and “orange”.
Sophie started out with the blue window marker. She was gliding its tip on the transparency as if someone was ice-skating and cutting marks on the ice. I thought she was enjoying the feel of drawing on contrasting textures - transparency and drawing paper.
When Sophie started playing with the marker and cap, I thought I was in trouble and she was not interested in this at all (so soon?!). Then she started drawing again and I was relieved. Papa was on his way to work so he tried to make her laugh with his silly facial expression and gestures. And that was why she was grinning the way she did towards the end of the video clip.
Whatever Papa did, it worked on Sophie brilliantly. She was so cheery and energized that she started naming what she drew. She carefully made some doodles and told me it was a bird (and it actually looked like one!) then, she made a few lines and called it “nana” (banana). The interesting part was when she looked at her “bird”, she saw something that resembled a “frog” and pointed it out to me. Sophie was never taught with flashcards so whatever (animal) she has learnt (successfully), she is able to recognize it in any form (from real picture to abstract drawing to origami). I think she tries to pick up the distinctive features of the animal before deciding what it is.
The effect was not very outstanding unfortunately. Partly because the ink was too opaque and she drew too many lines instead of blotches of ink. Oh well, the process was fun for her at least...
Project II : Mixing Yellow Paint With Red & Blue Paint
This was a more traditional approach so I added a new element to make it more interesting. I introduced “twine” as a painting tool to Sophie. Somehow, she did not really use it to paint. Either she prefers painting with her hands and fingers or I need to start coaching her to paint with a more alternative tools. Also, I think I need to try dipping the twine into paint and let her paint with it rather than putting the paint on the paper and getting her to “drag” the twine around.
I deliberately gave Sophie the primary colours so that she could see how green, orange and purple can be created. However, with the three colours mixing around on the same sheet of paper, it was fast becoming more purple and brown. Thus, I made a last minute decision to clean up the table and her hands so that we could achieve “yellow + blue = green” and “yellow + red = orange” (sorry, purple will just have to wait).
I think Sophie was much more enthusiastic when I let her handle the paint bottles herself. Maybe she felt that she had more control over what she was doing so the task became more meaningful for her.
To a certain extent, I think Sophie is much better at open-ended art than I am. She enjoys the process and she does not really care about the end product. Of course she also loves the stuff that we made together, but she really goes all out to experience the process every time I let her do art.
And when the day was done, Sophie finally decided to fiddle around with the twine…. Aiya….
