The story for the first half of our week was the well-known "Rapunzel". The letter "R" is hidden in the drawing -- formed by Rapunzel leaning her head out the window of the tower she was trapped in. (The tower side makes up the straight piece, her head is the circle part, and her hair is the "leg" of the "R".) J cried while retelling this story -- when I questioned him about why he was crying, he first said it was because it's such a sad story. "Because the prince got his eyes scratched?" I asked. He nodded, and I reminded him that when Rapunzel's tears touched his eyes, they were healed. And he nodded some more and said "yeah, it's so beautiful". So, I dunno. Maybe the story is just a little intense for him. Or maybe he really WAS touched by it. He certainly felt the prince was central enough in the story to include him in his drawing, despite the fact that I did not include him as a part of the led portion of the drawing. (See my drawing below.)
Zoo Boy's drawing. Much of this was with hand-over-hand assistance from me, although he insisted on drawing Rapunzel's hair himself. He also added a "P" at the base of the tower, which he told me stood for "Prince", and a "W" in the upper left corner, which he told me stood for "Witch". Very interesting, no? His style of adding the title really cracks me up, and is just "so him".
The large capital and small "R"s. J's in on top. I prepped J before starting by saying "we are writing a LARGE letter R", emphasising the word large, and making eye contact with him. His "R" is appropriately large.
J's rendition of the verse. Much creative spelling involved and still not much in the way of spaces between the words. I continue to watch and wait. I'm going to try modeling writing the verse myself at the same time the kids write. Zoo Boy is still just scribbling on each forest path and calling it writing. I'm cool with that.
I have had several requests to include my drawings as well as the children's, in addition to adding an explanation of what actually makes a drawing a "led drawing". In the led drawings, I am showing the kids how to draw certain key components of a story, for one thing to ensure that the hidden letter is embedded within for them to discover the next day. It also leads them in the drawing technique of bringing form out of darkness and light (so every drawing starts with us establishing an area of light -- yellow -- where the main components of our drawing will arise, and an area of dark -- blue -- which will comprise the background). After we've completed the key components of the drawing, I'll say "hm, I think I'll add a tree" or something like that, and they realize that I'm done leading them and they are free to embellish their drawing however they'd like. For our first few drawings, they were hesitant to add much beyond what we drew together. But with each successive drawing, they are becoming more and more enthusiastic about adding their own personal flair to their drawings and truly making them their own. It's a pretty cool process, and I am enjoying watching them go through it. Especially Zoo Boy, who really didn't have much interest in drawing prior to this, but now absolutely loves sitting down with his crayon case and good book.
No comments:
Post a Comment