SUSIE MALLETT

My visitors today

Monday 1 August 2011

I do like to be beside the sea








Paint and good, old-fashioned plasticine


Home for the summer

The Kindergarten group are off on their holidays soon. As these children come from four different countries: Germany, Turkey, Greece and Arabia and will be visiting their families in their homelands we decided that a common holiday theme after jet-plane travel could possibly be the sea.

So we painted the sea, or just a small bit of it so each had some to take home with them.

Then we went on to paint what we would see at the seaside.

The children could request outlines of what they wished to put onto their seascapes. I expected to be drawing beach balls and boats, swimmers and seagulls, but no. I received requested to draw lobsters, sea horses, cuttlefish, crabs, starfish and shells. Not a swimmer in sight, but that is probably not surprising with all those claws in the water ready to nip.

Near the end of this our latest three-week course for the Kindergarten children I found, in the supermarket, some vibrant coloured plasticine. I bought some with money from our painting-sales kitty and the children had great fun making three-dimensional versions of their painted artwork.

Some firsts in this group too

One little boy proudly goes to the toilet all alone now and he washes his hands all alone too, usually without being reminded! To do both he still has to climb on to a step as he is not quite big enough to do without, doing it all using a rolator and wearing his cycle helmet, just in case!

Another five-year old tied his shoe laces all alone on three consecutive days, so I think we can confidently say “By Jove I think he’s got it!”

He was not even sitting beside me to receive instructions. That wonderful achievement has taken twelve weeks of daily practice to reach, but it was all worthwhile when he heard the praise from the other children in the Kindergarten. It caused a huge smile to spread from one side of his face to the other when he was told that he is one of only two from fourteen children, who has learnt do it! Well done to both of you,  it is not an easy task to learn.

Notes

“By Jove I think she’s got it!” – From George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, later made into the musical My Fair Lady.

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