Pregraphism upside-down: five unusual and fun activities for the kindergarten.

Looking at things from a different point of view, it makes everything more fun, even the desk work.

The following activities, all suitable for four and five year old boys and girls, have been proposed to be of help in improving the graphic trait and mastery of hand movement, but also and not least, to help children look at things from an unusual point of view and to train them not to fall into boredom and habit.

Drawing in an unusual way at the kindergarten:

push small objects to make writing competitions.

Activities for Monday.

For this activity I used recovery material present at school, but can be equally well all small objects of rounded shape: buttons, pearls, toys.

In addition, A3 sheets and large point markers should be used.

The purpose of the activity is banal: move the object with the tip of the marker without leaving the edges of the sheet, without touching it with your hands and without ever detaching the tip of the marker.

But the action is challenging and fun at the same time, and to add some spice, I proposed to the children to work in four different phases:

First of all, the children had fun doing it themselves, each on their own sheet.
The children worked in pairs on a shared sheet but each with their own object.
The children worked in pairs with only one object to be pushed together.
On a large sheet lying on the ground, the different couples made a very fun competition.

For each of these different phases of work, we took the time to do things calmly and enjoy the moment and all were appreciated by the children who had a lot of fun.

After the initial explanation, their first comment was: easy!

But soon after they realized how much skill it required to proceed with the marker attached to objects and, in the end, someone concluded: he (the button ) commanded you!

But it was very fun and then it’s hard to work together.

Drawing under-over at the kindergarten:

to write from a new perspective, you go under the table.

Activities for Tuesday.

For this activity I amazed the children, preparing the setting of work without them being able to see me: before they arrived I attached, with paper tape, sheets size A3 under the table of the section.

Depending on the size of the tables you can attach several sheets even close together, in our case I could use three sheets for each table.

At the beginning of the activity I asked the boys and girls to make a drawing that respected the following characteristics:

The drawing must be done with only one dark color marker: blue or black.
Be large and rich in detail.
Be drawn in the contours but not coloured in the spaces.

Only once the explanation was finished, I revealed where I had hidden the sheets and I could see in the children’s eyes the astonishment and fun of having to lie down on the ground to draw.

Then after standing under the table, with their sheet over their head, staying with their back on the ground they began to trace their design.

All the boys and girls were able to comply with the requests, all have extended the execution time and have experienced themselves inside this new experience with pleasure and at the end they were proud of their drawings made below-above.

Draw vertically at kindergarten: mark a drawing.

Activities for Wednesday.

The purpose of this activity is to allow children to experience drawing in vertical and at the same time to try the experience of looking at an image in transparency and being able to copy it.

For the preparation of the work setting I used the drawings made by the children the day before and hung them on the windows with an additional white sheet overlaid.

Once superimposed and joined the two sheets, with a small piece of adhesive tape, I attached them both to the window and asked the children to take the same dark color, used to draw under the tables the previous day.

The effect of transparency created by the light on the sheets hanging from the windows intrigued the children, who immediately began to trace the features of their design.

The action of reviewing the line below, is only apparently simple and requires not only precision and attention, but also poses the problem of being able to find the correct position for writing vertically.

The complexity of this operation is certified by the fact that, only some of the four-year-old children have managed to copy, the others have limited themselves to reproduce again, what was already drawn earlier.

Exercising laterality in kindergarten: writing with two hands.

Activities for Thursday.

This activity was introduced by a guided conversation, aimed at drawing the children’s attention to the fact that our hands work differently and that everyone can feel safer working with one hand or the other and someone even with both hands.

Together we remembered when they were little and how it took some time for some of them to find the best hand to draw with.

Having done this, I offered them the opportunity to freely try to draw with both hands at the same time, without putting limits or making demands.

From these first spontaneous attempts, there were certainly some difficulties to use both hands at the same time, but it was also an opportunity to dwell on the concept of symmetry, offered by the execution of a child who worked with both hands symmetrically.

For many, if not all, it was a discovery and an opportunity to try something new.

Enhancing laterality at pre-school: write with two hands on predefined paths.

Activities for Friday.

After offering the children the opportunity to try something new and interesting, working with both hands, I wanted to complicate the request a bit, putting on the sheet elements that would encourage them to draw trajectories.

This simple and effective work served to let creativity flow in various directions.

Everyone began to carefully trace the first signs, then once they had the necessary confidence, they launched: someone passed the colors from one hand to another, someone else used two of them per hand, others still first observed the companions and then wanted to try everything.

The results of this activity may not be aesthetically interesting but what is really valuable is to observe how children can find personal and creative ways to perform a simple delivery and how they can live the moment well, having fun and experimenting.

Once tried with the boys and girls this interesting pregraphism, I proposed a card in which the request was to join the points from one to ten, always using both hands and using all the colors available.

The addition of numbers has generated new interest and allowed to consolidate what was learned, helping children to master this new skill more and more.

Every day, I asked the children to tell at home the work of the day and to test their parents with the same activities, the feedback was very positive and the pregraphing activities carried out in school were enriched by comments, questions and new insights.