Coloring and 5yr olds

Since when is coloring a life skill?!?! Ds started K this year. It's been about three weeks. He loves it. Ok so the teacher sent a note home that he needs to practice coloring. I know he's sloppy but he is so not even interested in coloring. He does it because he's supposed to. The other day he came home with a picture to color. It was a beehive and two bees. He colored the bees yellow and black to make a strips. Then he did the same thing for the hive. I admit it wasn't the best but he was going for something specific in his head. You'd have to be an idiot not to see it. The bees had faces too. She sent it home with another copy to redo it. So I sat and hovered and had him do it up to her specifications. it was sad cause he was saying the other pictures was scribbles. She had to have told him that. I'm aggravated that coloring is so important!!! Seriously he's 5!!!!!! Am I missing something? Is coloring so important?!?!

 

Were there specific instructions about how the bees and behive were supposed to be colored? How does she want him to redo it? I would email her and ask what the instructions are since I think its surprising she asked him to redo it.

 

I think the teacher is being very strict. My 6 year old (first grader) scribbles and does not change colors with the lines. I have never been told, other than a suggestion to encourage using a color other than blue! Sorry...

 

While I don't know where she is going with having him redo it but colouring is a fine motor and pre-literacy skill. Its fine to go outside of the lines but if he is so far out that they look like scribbles, it may be an indicator that his fine motor skills aren't where they should be.

 

The skills learned in Pre-K and Kindergarten are used as segs into other skills. Neatness in coloring has to do with the fine-motor skills that are nec for neat handwriting. I know that the boys' teachers last year showed me that I needed to focus on how they were holding the crayons and encourage them to use their hand/wrist to color as opposed to whole arm movement. Whole arm movement resulted in long crayon strokes and more erratic coloring outside the lines. They are far from perfect but their coloring has improved expotentially since we've worked on hand/wrist coloring instead of whole arm. They also need to hold the crayon properly to hand/wrist color a opposed to whole arm coloring (which is easy to do while fisting the crayon.)

Maybe an email to the teacher to inquire as to the goals she/he has in mind for the coloring exercise.

 

Interesting thread. I always thought of coloring as just a fun past time. My boys were never into coloring books .. but love to do mazes and dot to dot stuff, which I imagine helped them with their writing skill now. But I'm sure I would have thought it was a little extreme to send another copy home to re-do. But I guess she might be trying to identify or help with a potential problem.

 

We have had that issue a few times in the past. None of my kids like to color, they pretty much see it as busy work. I just looked at it as something to endure for the school year if we had a teacher that made it an issue lol. One of my kids did have small motor issues but they were addressed with cutting, playdoh, etc

 

I actually think the teacher is going over the top. Yes colouring helps with fine motor skills, and children need to learn correct grip but it is the first month and it doesn't sound like she's being constructive at all.
If she's really concerned about his colouring she should do something like Christina described and properly explain to you how he needs to work on it, not just say he needs to practice and then keep sending sheets home. I have to say that the fact that she is making it so obvious (to him) that she doesn't approve of the way he colours would make me furious. She could encourage him by focusing on what he has done well (e.g. put stripes on the bees) and then send home a different picture for more practice, instead of sending a redo copy which gives a clear message of 'that's not good enough, do it again'. :angry: I would have a hard time not saying something to her about it.

Also, as pp's pointed out, it's possible to work on fine motor skills other ways. Perhaps you could do some of those activities with him to help him improve.
In case you're wondering what is "normal" for a 5 year old; he should be using a 'tripod grasp' on pencils (that is holding it with his thumb and the tips of his first two fingers) and only moving his fingers/hand when drawing-if he has a tripod grasp but moves his wrist/forearm then he's more at a slightly younger level. Other things you can look at to ***** his fine motor skills are; cutting-can he follow a straight and curved line, getting dressed-doing and undoing zips/snaps/buttons, writing-can he draw/copy a circle/cross/triangle, you can also see if he's able to thread large beads on a string or do one of those threading cards.

I hope you can work it out and he isn't too upset by it.

 

This. Exactly. Yes, it is important to work on fine motor skills. Yes, he should be encouraged to hold the crayon properly and work to be more precise. But, encourage him, don't discourage him!!!

My DS hates to color. Most of his coloring is scribbles unless I make him do it neatly because he rushes through it. But, he works on his fine motor skills in other ways. He LOVES making paper airplanes and other paper-folding crafts. He is really good at it. He works hard to cut and fold things just right. This takes a lot of fine motor skills.

Also, at this age, those fine motor skills are still developing. They are still training those muscles. So, you have to expect some sloppiness. But, you put a smile on your face, give them a new picture (brand new), reposition the crayon in their hand, give them a couple of tips for how to do it, and encourage them to keep trying.

 

I'm a little peeved at the teacher this afternoon. Yes ds is sloppy. His handwriting needs work. But were working on it. He holds a pencil correctly. He likes to draw but not color Last night I stood over him and told him to color the paper a certain way. He did. He hated it too. After I sat and wrote a note telling her I try to let him do his homework himself so it's his work. I told her I told him what to do with that paper. Today she tells him that he did a fantasic job. To me that tells him that creativity is out and sitting and being told what to do and what color to choose is okay. Aren't they supposed to be learning to think for themselves?

 

I'm sorry to feel like :headbang: . I hope something gets better.

 

So, exactly what is it she should have told him? Seriously, you didn't like that she said to re-do, you don't like that she told him it was terrific. It's gonna be one heckuva long year if you don't figure out what she can do that will make you happy. I don't disagree that he needs to be allowed creativity but you just jumped to the conclusion that creativity is out, unless she indicated it and you didn't share that part.

 

Yes, I'm happy she told him he did a good job. But the first picture was nice too. Just not up to her standards. The beehive in the first picture was a little sloppy but it wasn't bad. Its a five year old trying to make strips. The second picture was a little cleaner but was me telling him what to do. Me saying color that part black, that yellow, etc. She knew I did that too because I told her. So yes maybe I am jumping to the conclusion creativity is out based on her comment today.

 

Coloring is an important skill bust so is creativity. Children do need to learn the skill of coloring, how to hold the crayon properly, how to stay in the lines, how to color with a smooth line but this teacher is being too strict. If she is saying that a beehive has to be just tan or yellow and bees have to be yellow and black she needs to go back to school. How interesting is the wall outside the kindergarten door when all roses are red and the leaves green. What a great teacher she must be when she can have a wall covered with exact copies of the same flower. Gardens are not important?

 

I would be peeved too in your situation. I don't think pictures should have to be coloured in a certain way, what's wrong with a little creativity? To only praise for very prescriptive colouring (specific colours in specific places) does, to me, send the message that it's not okay to colour however you want.
Given that your son doesn't enjoy colouring anyway I would probably just tell him that when he is doing a colouring sheet for his teacher he has to try hard to stay in the lines. At home he can colour (or not) as he likes.

BTW that starred word is supposed to say check. I have no idea how I managed to mis-type it into a banned word!

 

Jazzlyn colors beautifully. Jessy still scribbles but she draws and writes very good. They have done very little colorin in kindergarten. Mostly it's been color 4 bears yellow or whatever

 

OK why exactly is coloring an important skill to learn? And staying in the lines for that matter? Other than for fine motor skills I mean. When I see coloring all I see is something to make all those boring worksheets more palatable lol.

 

I told my friend it's interested how we're told that kids should have blank paper and not color on coloring books as much. Now he's being told to color in lines on coloring sheets.

 

This actually goes to the whole core of my career.Colouring is one of the first steps on the way to literacy. Some kids don't like it and find other fine motor but it is the predominant first step on the way to letter formation and being able to control a pencil.

What may seem like pointless busywork is really a step to a next level in development. Nothing is "just playing".

DLTK essay that talks about it way better than I could

I personally don't like colouring sheets but I'm not in the school system. (though I have had colouring books available) In the school system it is more structured and they are working more and more on the pre-literacy skills.

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*I'm riddled with red squiggly lines so I will say in Canada we spell colour with a U and I just can't spell it without.

 

Kendra (and others who talked about it) - thank you for the info about why coloring is important. I do ask him to slow down and do his best work. I'm cooled down this morning.

 

I understand the skills that coloring helps to improve, but in itself I guess I still don't see why the coloring itself is important. Learning how to hold a pencil can be learned by actually holding a pencil, etc.

 

I agree with these. I don't think it is too much to make them re-do it. In K, you should still be hovering to make sure they do it properly. If they don't know to follow the directions and do their best, neatest work ALWAYS (not just when they feel like it), when will they learn that? I ALWAYS make my kids erase their work ad re-do it if it isn't nice and neat. It's NEVER ok to hand in sloppy, not your best work. I tell my kids, that in life, you should always do your best at everything. This way you know you gave it your best effort. "A" for effort, really does go a long way. And it's never to early to learn that concept.

I mean of course kids rush through stuff they don't want to do. But, does that make it ok? In my mind, it doesn't. We all do things we don't want to, and if we hand a report in to our boss that is sloppy and not our best work, is that acceptable because we didn't like doing it? No, of course not. And it shouldn't be acceptable in school either.

Just my $.02 though.....

 

I think it makes a difference whether the kids understand what the point of it is supposed to be. I'd be upset too if one of my kids came home from K with some piece of art that the teacher said she had done wrong. If the kids are supposed to be practicing coloring inside the lines (as opposed to expressing themselves artistically), they need to know that.

This discussion does help me understand, however, why all of a sudden my kids are coming home from kindergarten with coloring pages that are all neatly (more or less) colored inside the lines! They never did anything like that in preschool -- it was all about creativity. So I was kind of surprised to see it.