Last month, the toddlers and infants were playing with the plexiglass stands on the playground more than usual. They engaged in various hiding games like peek-a-boo, peeking around the sides and looking underneath the stand. Educators Shannon and Melissa noticed the children seemed very interested in hiding and revealing themselves. To extend this interest beyond peek-a-boo games, we decided to introduce colours! We remembered doing scratch art as children, where we used sticks or coins to reveal a rainbow beneath the black coating, creating fun designs. We recreated this by painting the plexiglass with rainbow colours on one side and black on the other. We then invited the children to explore with popsicle sticks, tongue depressors, and wet sponge brushes.
Penny, Lloyd, and Evie each started with a stick. Lloyd dragged it along the black paint and noticed it left lines. "Woah," he said. When he revealed some green, he pointed and said, "Look, look!" Penny pushed hard and revealed the red behind the black. She squealed with excitement and said, "It’s red!" Evie copied her peers before reaching for the sponge brush. She dragged it along the black side and noticed the paint came off more easily. She pointed to the revealed colours with a smile on her face.
Evie, Penny, and Lloyd each had some wet paint on the ends of their sticks and discovered they could stick to the board! Dean came over and used the sponge brush as well. Each time he revealed a colour, he said, "Oooo." Levi joined next and began scrubbing the board with the sponge. Each stroke revealed more and more colours. Levi was able to label the colours green, blue, and yellow!
Atlas, Leila, and Ava each started with a stick but quickly switched to the sponge after watching some of their peers do so. They worked together to wash away the black, leaving us with a beautifully colourful board! Ava watched Ari use his sponge, and they both said, "Purple," as the purple began to shine through. Nihal and TongTong saw the colours and started labeling them. Once there was more space, they eagerly joined in and revealed more colour.
Penny and Theo observed this and said, "It’s like a rainbow." Jackson, Adelyn, and Theo took turns using the brushes and sticks. This provided a great opportunity for socializing and collaboration! George and Raelynn came over last and immediately grabbed the sponges. They each had a bowl of water to dip the sponges into. Quickly, the water changed from clear to black from the paint. Both children noticed this and looked around for new water. George held up his bowl and said, "New water, please." We used our water source to refill the bowl so they could continue working. Each time the water became dirty, they would show an educator and ask for "new water, please."
This learning experience relates to all five developmental domains: physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and language. Gross and fine motor skills were developed as the children held the utensils and moved them around the plexiglass boards. Cognitive development occurred when the children engaged in cause and effect by exploring what happens when they use the different utensils on the boards. Social development was evident as the children talked about what they saw, what they were doing, and shared the space and materials. Emotionally, the children were able to step away from more active play and engage in a calmer, more focused activity, which supported relaxation, self-regulation, and even self-esteem as they achieved the goal of revealing colours. Finally, we saw and heard language development as the children labeled colours, heard descriptive words like "scratch," "scrub," and "scrape," and conversed with one another.
To expand this experience, we could further combine the peek-a-boo game with the art activity, allowing the children to wash away the paint to reveal their peers on the other side!
