Day 10

By the time I got here this morning, some large outlines of rainbows were already set up, along with little pots of crayons, markers, coloured pencils and some jars of glitter glue. The sun made its way into the art corner with the sunshine drawing out the colours and making it feel naturally welcoming. A few children darted towards, to begin to colour.

I took apart one small group and requested that they select how they would like to colour their rainbows. One child replicated the familiar red and orange, yellow and green and blue and indigo and violet order but another child made use of pinks and blacks and golds and was very proud to say, this is my special rainbow. I justified the two methods, which also supports EYLF Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners, as I recognised the argument that creativity is lunging with personal choice (Department of Education, 2022).

 

Then we talked about how rainbows are made in the world--I told in simple language how it happens--the sunlight gets through the rain-drops--and we speculated how nice it would be to be under a rainbow. This involved the incorporation of science as a creative practice, which is consistent with NQS QA1: Educational Program and Practice (ACECQA, 2020). I also demonstrated proper glitter glue usage, invoking youngsters to use this substance in small quantity and to remember to clean their hands. This has supported NQS QA2: Children’s Health and Safety.

There were some children who worked with each other, supporting others who were not certain of the sequence of colours and others were quietly concentrating on their own designs. I invited the children who completed work to put in clouds, sun beams or raindrops to the picture making it a longer task and allowing children to think creatively.

Reflections: Art is a powerful activity that connects the learning domains even today when I learned that it is a topic helping to bring together the areas of literacy (tailing about their rainbow), science (I know that rain and light), and social-emotional growth (we should take other people seriously). I am now aware that on the one hand, I should encourage children to express themselves openly with enough factual concepts still in the picture, and this is an efficient tactic to reach various learners (Edwards, 2023).