It was a windy day in late autumn and the fall leaves were blowing and twirling on our patio. The children were fascinated and played chase with the spiraling, floating leaves. When the wind died away one of our teachers (Allie Covell) suggested that the children each draw a leaf that they had caught.
You can see these three boys are clearly focused and concentrating hard on drawing the leaf that they have in front of them. They each see the leaf in a different way, and this is reflected in their representations. The drawing by Patricio is quite structured in appearance with two vertical rows each comprising of three adjoining compartments. The two vertical rows are separated by a central line. Dacoda has drawn a more oval leaf and has drawn long lines across the entire leaf to represent the leaf veins. Angels first leaf was large with a central line up through the middle and lines coming off the line. He has also drawn some smaller leaves which give more emphasis to the structural veins that make up the leaf.
Observational line drawing encourages the children to see and focus on detail, shape, form and structure, rather than colour. In this exploration the children have emphasized the structural components of the leaves, identifying the internal framework (stem and veins). The children’s representations also show how they see this internal framework of the leaf stem and veins is arranged.
As the children were drawing their teacher talked about leaves and how they change with the seasons; dying and falling in winter, and then the spring growth bringing on new young leaves again. The children talked about the trees having “no leaves” and being “empty” in winter.
Left to Right: Angel Draws large and small leaves. Dacoda draws a leaf with an emphasis on the vains. Patricio sees his leaf as made up of seperate adjoining compartments.
STATS:
CHILDREN Morgan, Emily, Te Ariki, Jade, Toby, Patricio, Dacoda, Angel
TEACHER Allie Covell
EXPLORATION Drawing using fine black pens.
SOME KEY LEARNING Biology, seeing detail, fine motor skills.
by on January 5, 2010 ·
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