For the next few Golden Quills I would like to share a picture of our Karri Kindergarten Monday-Thursday rhythm, beginning with Monday.  Associated with the watery moon, it’s a perfect day for us to paint with watercolours, wet-on-wet.  It’s also a quiet, calming activity that helps to settle the children into a new week at kindergarten.  Once we are seated at the table, the wet paper on wooden boards is given out to the children, and the teacher sits beside them with her painting board in front of her.  Then we sing this little song….

“Rainbow, lovely glow
Put some colours in my hand
Together we make a fairy land”

We then speak a verse, which helps the children remember how to clean their brushes between each colour.

“Dive into my deep, dark well
Swim around, swim so well
Dive into my crystal pond
Now I may paint with my magic silver wand”

The teacher begins painting, while telling a little story about the colours.  Then it’s time for the assistant to hand out the children’s brushes and sponges and the children begin.  Painting time is quiet and reverent, so the children can fully experience the wonder of the colours as they dance across the page.  When they are quiet, they can “hear what the colours want to say”.

Watercolour paints are used, enabling the children to experience light radiating through the colour (unlike with tempera paint where they experience light reflected from colour).  High quality natural pigment (Stockmar) paints are used in the three primary colours, red, yellow and blue.  We offer first one colour, then introduce a second before offering all three.  In this way the children can discover the secondary colours in an exploratory way.  Because of the mobility of the water on the damp page, the children are able to experience the purity of moving colours, unhampered by the restrictions of form.  The young children themselves are still living in the realm of pure movement.  Thus the painting experience mirrors the developmental stage of the children.

This week with the return of sunny weather heralding the Djilba season, the children were given just yellow, like the daffodils which are appearing in the garden.  Next week blue will join yellow so the children can discover the vibrant green of the new growth in nature we see all around us now.

Warm wishes,

Denise