Throughout the Kindy year, we offer the children a variety of tasks which have been carefully planned to meet them where they are in their development. Early tasks are short and sweet, designed to be completed easily by the children, giving them a boost in confidence as they see their finished crafts displayed around the room. Later in the year, the tasks become longer, more challenging and have more steps involved.
Late in Term 3, each Kindy child finger-knitted balls of wool in all the rainbow colours. Some children thought they would never be able to finish one ball, let alone all the colours, but one-by-one they all got the hang of it and by the beginning of Term 4, were beaming and proud and ready for the next step.
This term, we began to weave our rainbow finger-knitting onto a round weaving board. Again, many children thought they would not be able to finish all their colours, but the whole class kept trying, and encouraging each other until now, almost all our weaving has been finished, and the children are, rightly, very proud of themselves.
There were many guesses about what our weaving might be... a pillow, a new rug for Kindy, a nest, or a shell for a turtle. This week at last, the children were each given a green turtle to begin to feed with fluffy wool. When the turtles are full and strong, their shell will be sewn onto the body and they will have a beautiful turtle, that they have made themselves, a reminder of what can be achieved when they put their mind to something.
We choose longer-term, multi-step projects at this time of year for this very reason—to allow the children to carry this inner feeling of confidence with them into Class 1 and beyond.
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