https://earlymathcounts.org Laying the foundation for a lifetime of achievement Tue, 11 Jul 2017 15:50:31 +0000 en-US hourly 1 183791774 https://earlymathcounts.org/sidewalk-chalk-redux/ https://earlymathcounts.org/sidewalk-chalk-redux/#comments Wed, 13 Aug 2014 13:00:57 +0000 http://www.mathathome.org/blog1/?p=432 Yesterday, while walking my pugs I saw these chalk drawings.  I love how you can see what the adult has drawn and what the child has drawn.  The bottom picture is a “mandala” – the first symbolic representation children draw.  They are often circular with lines intersecting the edges, looking like rudimentary suns.  Sometimes, children’s mandalas are triangular, sometimes crosses.   For children, these are the elements that provide practice for drawing more sophisticated representations later. They are also the foundation for creating numbers and letters.  If you ask children about their drawings they will often report that they represents “people”-circles representing heads or torsos, and lines representing legs and arms.  As these become more sophisticated, children may add more circles and lines, to represent the mouth, they eyes, the nose and the ears.  I love these early drawings and the early ability to create and identify shapes.

]]> https://earlymathcounts.org/sidewalk-chalk-redux/feed/ 3 432 https://earlymathcounts.org/summertime-sidewalk-chalk/ https://earlymathcounts.org/summertime-sidewalk-chalk/#respond Thu, 15 Aug 2013 11:00:21 +0000 http://www.mathathome.org/blog1/?p=420 Last week we took a look at hopscotch as a fun summer gross-motor activity that also incorporates several math concepts. Today, I thought we could simply look at “chalk” as a very inexpensive tool that teachers can use to promote skills in every developmental domain.
Sidewalk chalk can be bought for next to nothing.  I always check out my local dollar store to see if they have any in stock and oftentimes they do.  (The dollar store is an early childhood professional’s best friend.). Even though I have a tactile dislike of chalk and can’t really touch it, many children love to draw with it.  One of the great reasons for this is that children can draw BIG.  There are no limits to how much they can draw, except for the edges of the sidewalk.  Children can work collaboratively on drawings but more likely they will draw next to each other or near each other.
Chunky chalk can support the development of fine motor skills in young children.  Fine motor skills are necessary for children to begin writing their letters and numbers.  So by allowing children free reign with a bucket of sidewalk chalk you are also supporting other important skills.  This is a great example of how all of the domains are tightly connected in a young child’s development.

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