on Worksheets in Early Years education…

I don’t like worksheets very much. I agree that they are, generally speaking, not great practice. No Eyes Pie Art lessons ever involve worksheets because I don’t think a worksheet, in and of itself, ever makes for an en excellent early years art activity or learning experience. On first starting work as an art teacher in a nursery I surprised that the previous teacher had given the children worksheets to colour, cut out and glue onto cardboard tubes to make, for instance, an army of identical squirrels. Where’s the creativity I thought? Where’s the attention to the individual needs of the children? And so I climbed quickly onto the NO WORKSHEETS bandwagon.  Similarly I recall a story of my mother’s about my brother’s angst (25 years ago) over a maths worksheet giving simple addition questions followed by a number of pictures to colour in. I suppose the idea was that it was more fun to colour in than write numbers so the children would enjoy maths more. For my brother however – and countless others I’m sure – who knew that 2 + 3 = 5, being forced to spend 2 minutes colouring in 5 apples when they had worked out and could easily have written the answer down in seconds was not a welcome additional objective, particularly as he hates colouring in!

Enough of us work in educational settings where worksheets are frowned upon to understand why they’re bad (if you want more info here’s a great blog on the subject from pre-kpages.com). But as I have observed the children that I teach playing with different art materials in their own ways – identifying the idiosyncratic approaches to their own learning, their schemas, interests and the patterns in their play – my heart has softened toward the much maligned worksheet. Before embarking on my justification of some worksheets I must point out that I still don’t agree with the practices in my opening examples and worksheets on the whole. They indicate lazy planning without recourse to differentiation of learning objectives or any real understanding of the children who were supposed to be doing the learning.

So what makes me think worksheets aren’t all bad? Simply because, when adapted and used sensitively, they can occassionally be very helpful, I’ll give you a couple of examples:
•    In a group of three year olds I observed that during a cutting activity a couple of the children were cutting around pictures that they had drawn. Some of them were cutting art straws into tiny tubes with which they did nothing, while most of them were roughly cutting across pieces of paper and sticking the resulting rectangles together – or not. Recognising that the children were, on the whole, just enjoying the process of cutting I decided to make a couple of worksheets. I drew different wiggly, straight, curved, zig-zag and spiral dotted lines on some A4 paper, drew a pair of scissors at one end and a bee, pirate ship, dinosaur or whatever at the other. The next time the children came for an art lesson these worksheets were added to the cutting resources available. The variety of lines meant that the children could choose how they used the worksheet. They met a range of abilities and provided a challenge that the children were ready for. The learning objectives were process driven – they didn’t have to prove any knowledge, there was no end product to get wrong – just some cutting to be done (which is fun) and no fear of failure.

•    Another group of children were beginning to recognise that they could draw particular shapes to represent particular objects. Some of the children in the group were getting frustrated that they didn’t know how to draw what they had in mind and want adults to draw it for them. I don’t like colouring in sheets so I don’t draw pictures for children to colour in – “if I draw it then it’s my picture and I’ll take it home with me, but if you draw it it’s yours and you can take it home” I tell them. This time, I met them half way. I photocopied multiple sheets with one shape drawn on them – a circle, a trapezium, a diamond, a cross, rectangles with different aspect ratios, ambiguous bowler hat type shapes. Next time the children came to do drawing they had plain paper and shape paper to choose from. They instantly recognised the shapes as particular objects and adapted them appropriately, colouring and augmenting them and adding other details to the scene. And having made the connection between a blank, outlined shape and an object they were more able to conceive of the shapes they needed to use next time they were drawing.

In both instances the staff in the room said “I thought we weren’t allowed to give them worksheets” and I agreed “but these aren’t just worksheets…” I explained. I made these myself in direct response to the interests I had observed in the children’s play and I designed them to teach something particular as they continued to play in their own way. My aim was to enrich the provision for their child-led learning, rather than forcing them to carry out an adult-led activity on a theme that they weren’t at all interested in. I’m convinced that my homemade worksheets got more children cutting with improved accuracy than if I had asked all the children to draw their own lines to cut out – the majority would have just drawn and not wanted to cut up their picture, or just continued to chop with abandon – by bringing a little more focus for those that would choose it.

So should worksheets be banned? Not completely. But neither should they be downloaded willy-nilly from some random early years activities web-site (and I won’t provide mine). I firmly believe that a custom worksheet, thoughtfully designed by an early years educator, in direct response to observations of the children’s play and tailored specifically to those children’s needs, talents and abilities is an excellent addition to a well planned early years art activity or extra resource for enriching child-led free play. Particularly when that worksheet gives the children a choice as to how they use it and, most importantly, isn’t given to the children as an entire activity or distraction that is supposed to just keep them occupied for a while – it is definitely an optional extra.

Enabling Environments

In nurseries and pre-schools, a lot of time and effort is spent ensuring that children are cared for in “enabling environments”. It’s a requirement of the EYFS and generally means that: equipment is child sized, age appropriate and relevant to the children’s interests; resources are open ended and allow for more creative, imaginative play; children are given ample time and space to fully explore those aspects of the world that they are interested in. I could go on, but I’m sure many people reading this will already be familiar with the concept as it is likely plastered all over your nursery!

What we seem to give less thought to sometimes, is the idea that “enabling environments” is an element of nursery provision that extends to the staff as well as the children. When an aeroplane is designed with all the key controls within arms reach of the pilot, that’s an enabling environment. Making sure that the computers in an office are equipped with all the software required for the staff to do all they need is providing an enabling environment. Here I want to look at few points that might help to ensure that nursery staff also get to work in enabling environments. I mostly speak from my experience as an early years art specialist, but I hope that anything mentioned here might translate to other areas of the nursery.

1  Plenty of A3 white paper to hand
Ever tried to draw a beautiful picture of the sun and some flowers with yellow felt pens on a bright pink sheet of sugar paper? It doesn’t work. Whilst coloured sugar paper can be great for cutting and sticking activities, it makes brilliant hats, belts, paper planes – it’s not so great as a background to make a picture on (unless you’re using soft pastels or charcoal). White sugar paper is often a far more suitable background to make pictures on – it allows children to see the full effect of their paint mixing on the page and makes their colour choices worthwhile when using pens and pencils. Providing clarity in these areas enhances the learning experience and actually allows for more open ended explorations. I often find that, on coming to set up a painting or drawing activity, there is only dark blue or pink sugar paper left, which works counter to the learning intentions of the session. I also spend a lot of time cutting A1 paper down to A3 so that it fits on the table, art mat or builders tray where the children will be working and I’m sure I’m not only one. For those who work full time in a nursery having to cut paper to size, or hunt around for a suitable colour is a sizeable barrier to planning activities that need these resources.
N.B. I say A3 as this is a good size for most activities. It’s big enough for those developing their gross motor skills and small enough not to be too daunting to paint a whole picture on. It’s worth having plenty of A4 paper around for older children or free drawing times and A2 for larger scale work, particularly on the easel.

2  Adult scissors
If you’ve had to cut out pictures for children’s folders, or even cut A1 paper down to A3, with children’s scissors you’ll know it’s a frustrating and painful task. Scissors for children are made for small hands and they are somewhere between sharp enough to be safe and not sharp enough to be dangerous. They’re not made for heavy duty tasks – you can’t cut a door in a big cardboard box with them.

3  Ready mixed paint – in all three primary colours
I’m always surprised when I arrive at a nursery and the only paint they have in their art area is blue and brown and maybe a little splatter of green in the bottom of a bottle. Similarly I don’t know anyone who likes (or really even has time for) spending half an hour mixing powder paints in preparation for a painting activity. Sometimes it’s great to get the kids to help you mix the paint – but if mixing wasn’t the learning intention you may find you’ve exhausted your resources and the children’s interest before you even get to the point! Once you’ve mixed up your powder paint, it is tricky to top up halfway through a learning experience when one of the most engaged children shouts “I need more orange”. Availability of different types of paint in at least red, yellow, blue and white are fundamental to enabling children to fully explore media and materials in the ways advised in the EYFS. Providing only powder paint, or few colours hinders nursery nurses and teachers from responding to their observations of the children’s play in the moment and is a disincentive to plan and prepare really great learning experiences with paint.

4  Somewhere flat to dry paintings
Having finished your exploration of “how much paint can I put on this piece of paper?” or “what happens when I drip lots of paint in the same place” it can be devastating to see all your hard work run off the page when an adult hangs it on a line to dry – or tips the paint off prior to hanging so it doesn’t drip. As an adult it’s hard to navigate a room full of (sometimes wet) paintings hanging at face height! Children explore paint and glue in so many ways, and while hanging paintings on a line is fine following some activities, laying them on a drying rack is appropriate for all 2D work. You’ll feel freer to let the children get carried away if you know there’s plenty of space to stack their work and find it much easier to set up for meal times and new activities if there isn’t a lot of artwork drying on all the tables around the room. In my experience I’ve found that it’s much more convenient to remove paintings from a spring-loaded drying rack at the end of the week than from a fun caterpillar shaped rack with sliding shelves.

5  Enough equipment to go around
If your toddlers and pre-school rooms both want to do painting at the same time it can cause tension in the team if your staff have to run backwards and forwards negotiating with each other for access to paint, palettes, brushes and even aprons. No-one wants to set up learning experiences that require them to leave the room understaffed while they hunt for resources. Maybe there doesn’t need to be powder paint in every room, or coloured paper, or even secondary coloured (orange, green, purple) ready mixed paint but everybody that is going to do an art activity with the children in their room needs ready access to plenty of white paper, ready mixed primary coloured paint, brushes, palettes, glue spreaders and PVA and pots. The old “out of sight, out of mind” adage can be applied here – Quite simply if you don’t have the resources to hand, you won’t put them out for your children to use.

In Art in the Early Years [RoutledgeFalmer; 2003] Kristen Ali Eglinton provides an excellent list of materials and resources for nurseries seeking to provide better arts education to their children. Eyes Pie Arts’ Artroom Essentials list is available here.