Once a week is painting day. The purpose of painting in the younger grades is to give the child an experience with color. Form is not emphasized at all. Painting are guided through little stories. I think another secondary purpose is to teach certain techniques, such as covering the paper with color, being able to paint two colors next to each other without mixing them, painting with long strokes vs. short circular strokes, learning how to get strong dark colors vs. pale colors, etc. I always let Sariah paint her own free painting after we are done with the guided one.
Once again, I turn to Marsha Johnson's work for inspiration. Her first grade painting guide has been invaluable! (Available through her website, Magic of Waldorf.com, along with many other wonderful guides.) All of the painting stories below except the first one came from this guide. I also have loved the book Painting and Drawing in Waldorf Schools, though it has been better for 5th grade than for 1st, and the first painting came from it, though I had to come up with the story on my own.
The red hot fire in the gnome's cave illuminates the jewels and gold nuggets embedded in the walls. Mom's on top, Sariah's on bottom.
Blue rains meet red autumn hills to form a violet mist.
Martinmas lanterns shining in the darkness. See how tricky it is to not get green when yellow and blue come close together?
A squirrel family keeping warm together in their hole. Sariah wanted to know why we were painting the squirrels blue, I told her it was because they were cold.
An icy frozen puddle surrounded by frosty winter grass. This doesn't look all that exciting, but I was especially proud of her on this painting because it takes a lot of care and control to get such pale colors when the paint in the paint cups was strong to begin with.
Here are some examples of first grade form drawing. Form drawing is a therapeutic activity in which the child must draw patterns. Prior to drawing these, we introduce each one through a little story and then practice it using lots of movement, for example, I will draw it on the sidewalk outside and have her walk, run, jump, skip, or hop the pattern. Or, we can write it on one another's backs with our fingers or lay down and trace it in the air with arms, toes, etc. The drawn form itself is a representation on paper of the movement(s) we have just performed.
This activity develops large and fine motor skills, prepares the child to write, and builds the child's will. I used the ideas and stories from Marsha Johnson's first and second grade form drawing e-book. (Can you tell I love her work?) The last form or two came from Waldorf Essentials. We do form drawing once a week, on Monday mornings.
The form on the left was exceedingly difficult for Sariah. It was very hard for her to not have the lines of each curve touching one another, looking more like a circle than a series of arcs. I allowed her to draw it using the edge of the page for a guide; we will probably revisit this one sometime later and have her draw it in the middle of the page.
The wave form was also a huge challenge. We started it one week and revisited it the next. The last form was the most fun of all, and she did it just perfectly as long as she was careful and focused. This is great stuff for a child like my daughter dealing with adhd.
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