Precut Stick And Paste

[Guest terrydoo73]

We have been told by our Development Worker who advises us on how to plan, observe and assess pre-pre-school children not to give the children precut stick and paste handouts. We were planning to do a mitten so how would you suggest we approach this - it is along the basis of the book. The whole theme for this month is about self care ie learning how to dress properly and thought of this idea but wondered how we could get around this problem - what about dashes to join up or drawing around their hands? They are only just turned 3 years of age.

[Panders]

Please don't inform the cut and stick police, but I don't see a problem with OCCASIONAL use of pre-cuts, as long as the children can get to decorate them as they please!

 

 

How about decorating the front of a booklet with the children's hand prints, I'm sure they would have a lot of fun with that.

[Guest terrydoo73]

I personally see no problem but my Deputy is taking the Development Officers word on this and as we have just opened as a Playgroup we want to follow the book. We did handprints today for the purpose of their snack mat and laminated it - we just thought of following this on with the mitten. I have large A4 size mittens for them to do glitter, confetti etc on ...

[Guest]

Must the activity be a 'sticking' activity - if not ...how about getting two or three pairs of charity shop mittens/gloves - could add them to a large container of lentils to fill and empty.

Might also be fun to put in printing activity, allow children to put mittens on, put hands in paint tray and then hand print with them on - could wash them later on and peg them on a little washing line.

 

If it needs to be sticking/gluing, how about using old / odd mitten/gloves or whatever and provide a range of other materials for children to cut and stick onto the mittens etc.

 

Just a couple of ideas off the top of my head.

 

The Selfless Giant is a lovely story involving clothes - in the past we've collected all the items and left them for children to act out the story, has been very successful - they especially loved a large pair of shoes to put toy mice in.

 

Look forward to other ideas.

[Guest terrydoo73]

My Deputy suggested today to let them draw around their hand and we cut out the mittens or just keep them as is. We are trying to do a display on the board relating to the winter theme and the board has only got the month at the top with words associated with winter so thought of putting things in the middle such as these mittens. I have also downloaded and laminated the animals in the story of The Mitten so they could be added to the board as a feature - have I got it all wrong??

 

Funny I did think about getting mittens and letting them decorate these but how would they stick things onto them - PVA glue??

[mps09]

Please don't inform the cut and stick police, but I don't see a problem with OCCASIONAL use of pre-cuts, as long as the children can get to decorate them as they please!

 

 

How about decorating the front of a booklet with the children's hand prints, I'm sure they would have a lot of fun with that.

 

 

Oh I so agree - it all depends what you 'sell' it as!! Are you developing their creative individuality? I guess not with pre-cut shapes..... on the other hand, will they select only one colour to decorate? are you observing gluing techniques? textures of what is stuck on?

 

If you link it into other 'skills' rather than creativity, then way to go!! and have fun... I'm sure the children will!

[Guest terrydoo73]

I guess if we put out PVA glue and pritt stick then they are choosing the resources they want to use - they may not even put the glue on the paper but prefer to lift it with the stick and watch it fall into the pot again? Also I suppose if we offer them different colours of glitter along with different colours of crayon or confetti pieces etc then it is about selecting resources again. Also we could listen for the language used while putting on the bits and pieces.

[sunnyday]

Please don't inform the cut and stick police, but I don't see a problem with OCCASIONAL use of pre-cuts, as long as the children can get to decorate them as they please!

 

Funny you should say that!

 

I added some pre-cut 'people' to our creative area today - the first little girl to spot them said "what are we meant to do with these"?

I replied "anything that you want to do" - with that she was 'off' - she chose 1 big one and 1 little one - she stuck them on to a piece of A3 sugar paper - she drew clothes - using felt tips, she added 'sticker' eyes and then cut out mouth shapes from some red paper - she said "it's me and daddy before mummy was born"!

All children, throughout the morning accessed this area and all decided to use the 'people' but in many, many different ways - there was absolutely no adult input - apart from labelling their various creations using their own 'voices'........

 

Later I read 'Someone Bigger' to the group - this extended, built on the great conversations that had been generated by the 'pre-cut people'

 

I really think that, as intended, the pre-cut people just acted as an 'enhancement' to the area..........tomorrow the 'left over' pre-cuts will be there but so will a large wooden 'people' stencil - I shall just 'stand back' and see where they go with this!

[Panders]

Oh I so agree - it all depends what you 'sell' it as!! Are you developing their creative individuality? I guess not with pre-cut shapes..... on the other hand, will they select only one colour to decorate? are you observing gluing techniques? textures of what is stuck on?

 

If you link it into other 'skills' rather than creativity, then way to go!! and have fun... I'm sure the children will!

#

 

If the cut outs are on reasonable thickness of card - could you offer the hole punch to the children and then they could perhaps thread string or ribbon in and out to the holes round the edge as if they had stitched the mittens themselves, rather than joining up dots with pens as you mentioned before nice bit of physical and small tool observations for you.

 

Plus I do think Sunnyday's experience today tells you a lot about how children access any of the resources we put out, we think we will be doing one thing, but crikey the children have other ideas.

[Guest]

Sorry not gonna like this but we do nothing pre-cut and paste

 

what is wrong with children drawing their mitten from a real object if you want or drawing round their hand and the children cutting it out

 

so what if it does not look like a mitten it is their own work not yours

 

Doing it this way way stretches your children who otherwise have spent most of their lives at pre school sticking a cut out

 

ask 10 adults to draw a tree they will all be different not wrong just different and different is good it feeds creativity

[mps09]

Sorry not gonna like this but we do nothing pre-cut and paste

 

what is wrong with children drawing their mitten from a real object if you want or drawing round their hand and the children cutting it out

 

so what if it does not look like a mitten it is their own work not yours

 

Doing it this way way stretches your children who otherwise have spent most of their lives at pre school sticking a cut out

 

ask 10 adults to draw a tree they will all be different not wrong just different and different is good it feeds creativity

 

 

I don't disagree with this - or any of the responses - but I do think that we can get hung up on NEVER doing these things, we're not suggesting that this is the ONLY 'creative' opportunity offered. There are lots of other possibilities but really - don't be put off doing this.... as long as you go with the flow of the children if they suggest an alternative!

 

Do you want to decorate this mitten? or draw your own? Would you like to cut it out?

 

Surely it's the experience that counts, not always the great learning intention.

[sunnyday]

Surely it's the experience that counts, not always the great learning intention.

Abso-jolly-lutely!

 

If I wasn't so hopeless - I could upload some photos of my children's creations from today and perhaps it would become clear that they produced 'unique', 'individual' work using the pre-cut people as a 'base' - using their own ideas and our great 'craft trolley' which is full of wonderful resources which enable our children to make active choices.........and as I said with no adult input!

 

They used many skills and I was able to observe 'from a distance' and have been able to record some really useful entries for their Learning Journey folders! None of the children were 'told to' or even 'encouraged' to use the creative area - it was just 'there' as it is everyday as part of my 'enabling environment' - an environment, in which I might add, creativity is valued! For some children this covered an aspect of every area of learning - for others not.

 

This may well be the only time that I use anything 'pre-cut' this term - it's not something we do a lot of - but I defend the idea that it added to their experience today and has given me some 'next steps' ideas for how to build on and extend this - can't be so bad surely?!

[Cait]

I agree with you Sunnyday. Some children, for whatever reason, lack the confidence to have a go, and are unused to doing anything like the free access activities on offer. Some have never had access to scissors, so to have something pre-cut can be reassuring as an initial first step. Later, they can see how such things are 'manufactured' and have a go themselves. Plus, as Sunnyday has found, it's often nice to have these things around so children can access them if they want to, to use their imaginations in ways we don't always expect.

Edited January 24, 2011 by Cait

[Guest terrydoo73]

So I put out A4 sheets today which had the shape of the mitten in the middle of the page. We gave them a choice of resources and they chose the pritt stick with lots of stars, cotton wool, ribbon being used. We asked if they wanted to use the scissors to cut out and as you say there were so many observations to be taken from this activity. We even managed to get some good digital photos - the concentration on one particular childs face was priceless! They are up on the board now and as we had put up the handprints from yesterday there was great discussion from everyone who had taken part - wait until they come in tomorrow.

 

My Deputy and I have taken the atitude that this was an extension from the songs we did yesterday - "I have 10 little fingers" to the printing of their hands to talking today about protecting our hands in the winter from the cold, reading The Mitten and using junk art to decorate the mittens. The whole idea of our settling in planning was All About Me and I think these ideas are OK - if our Development Officer tells us off when she comes out next we will ask her how to approach it for the next time so that we know what to do then.

[Guest]

Are the photo's being displayed with the mittens? I think this would look quite good...the process along with the end product.

 

I'm personally not keen on templates / cut outs, especially when 'the real thing' is easily available. Whatever activity, I used to try to enable the child to use as many senses as possible to enhance the learning experience.

 

Peggy

[Guest terrydoo73]

Good point Peggy - I will now put up the photos along with the mittens produced.

 

Just as a matter of interest how would you have approached such a problem? Used "real mittens"?

[Guest]

sounded good and the photos show the process as it is just as much if not more about the process than the end product.

 

If you firmly believe in what you are doing then dont be afraid to tell her..... at the end of the day it is your setting