Form Drawing

The main lesson for the first few weeks of school was "How to be first graders."  The children learned why they come to school and how to work and play with adults and other children as a class.

In addition to that they were introduced to form drawing and practiced it everyday.  They became aquainted with their beeswax crayons and paper.  We discussed where these materials come from and used all of our senses to learn about them.  Every day I would tell a little story to introduce a new form.  The children would find examples of that form everywhere in nature.  Then we practiced the previous days form with our bodies.  We would stand in a straight line, for example, or walk in a spiral.  Finally, we would draw the form from the previous days.

The first day of school, we drew a line and a curve.  Try to find these yourself!  If you look, you might notice that everything we can touch and see is either a line or a curve.

One of the forms we drew was a spiral moving inward which tightened increasingly as it moved toward the center.  Then we drew another spiral inside the first.  I introduced all of the spirals with stories I created about the Northwestern Garter Snake who crawls under a rock when he's afraid or calm, or crawls out from the rock when its time to play.  These are also therapeutic stories which address the social issues coming up among the class.  

Form drawings are actually crystalized movement and aid in the child's development.  They are learning to control their movement, developing fine motor skills, and preparing to write letters and numbers.  The spiral which moves inward actually brings them into their body and can be calming, as are drawing concentric circles from the outside in.

All of these are wonderful!  And we often think of some way to improve next time and notice how we've improved since last time.  Even Teacher!

This week, we'll begin learning letters!