Supporting mark making in the early years

I noticed that my three-year-olds are interested in making marks. Two girls sang while they were drawing together on a piece of paper. They seemed to be exploring lines, colours, forms as well as rhythm. Some children were draw marks to depict dinosaurs, with bold colours and lines, probably to express the energy of their favourite T-Rex?

First planning that came to my mind was the environment, both indoor and outdoor environments, which enabled children to practise mark making through spontaneous opportunities for involvement. I believe the environment should offer a wide variety of possibilities for exploring and learning, providing both new challenges and familiar settings so that children develop confidence and skills. Specifically,

• plenty of opportunities to try new experiences, such as making marks outside in the sand, making books and greeting cards; exploring new resources such as whiteboard/blackboard/clipboards, colour pencils, felt-tip…
• mark-making resources to be carefully chosen, well organised and attractively presented, so that children can decide independently how they want to represent their ideas and which medium would best suit their purpose.When resources are attractively displayed, children’s curiosity will be aroused and they will be tempted to try and be involved in new experiences
• displaying pictures of dinosaurs around to inspire more drawing

Second thing on my planning was communication with my colleague to ensure consistent responses to children's interests and emerging skills. In Melbourne, the 3-year-olds teacher works alongside a co-educator with a group of 20 children. The teacher and the co-educator need to be on the same page to look out for "teachable moments" to extend the learning of children. So, the co-educator needs to be aware that mark making is a valuable learning activity for young children. 

Thirdly, the parents should be well informed. I will share a couple of learning stories on mark making in the next post.