Pumpkin Puzzles? Ummm...

The older children... (An aside: Have you noticed that Ella, Dominic and Nora are now the Big Kids? They are, you know. It's Addie and Dries who are the babies.)

When the Big Kids tackled the pumpkin puzzle, they were able, with a little direction, to hold the sticks with one finger while painting them with a brush. They also understood (because I had a completed one to show them) the purpose of the painting.

Now, that's the thing about babies, toddlers and even many pre-schoolers. While they love to mess around with craft materials, they're far more interested in the process than the product. They are not playing with paint to make something. They are playing with paint to discover its texture, its colour, the way it moves, how a paintbrush works, how absorbent different paint surfaces are... There are a million and one things to learn about paint and painting, and they are diligently learning them. Making a picture? Not even on the radar yet.

However, when I show the Big Kids the completed puzzle, they "get" that there will indeed be a product. It's still not really the point for them, but they understand the concept.

Addie and Dries? No such awareness. Why paint the stick, which won't even hold still, when I can watch the colour appear on my high chair tray??

Look at how it smears when I do this. Cool!

Oh, and I can make a neat noise, and different kinds of paint marks, when I whack it with the stick!

Addie explores the flavour of paint and the texture of the stick, while Dries considers the way paint drips off the brush. (Paint is a liquid! It drips! No, they don't have that vocabulary, and wouldn't really understand it if you gave it to them, but it's on this experience that the vocabulary will be laid in due time. Without the experience of "liquid", the word is meaningless, an empty collection of sounds.)

Like Addie, Dries likes the way the colour appears on the surface before him,

but he's also quite taken by the texture of the brush

and the squooshiness of the paint in his fist!

And, oh, lookit that! There's paint on my high chair now, too!

It is so totally fascinating to watch them explore, and to know that every single thing they do is another piece of the puzzle for them, another step to comprehending the world.