No, that’s not a misspelled word, considering Amelia is only five. I spent some time with her creating collages from old magazines, National Geographic to be exact, and it was a great little lesson for our pod of one.
Amelia’s Grammy gave us a huge stack of old National Geographic magazines before the virus struck, so we used them. We’d already looked at them a bunch of times, and they were ready to be used in a craft.
First off, it was great practice for scissor safety and motor skills. We watched a few videos on scissor safety before the lesson, which were review for her since she learned it in preschool. But as we all know, it’s better to repeat the lessons from school, because repetition supports what they learn. We discussed handing off scissors to others, walking with scissors, and how to use them safely.
According to Pathways.org, motor skills are important because they are used “everyday throughout our lives. They help us move and do everything from lifting heavy items to typing on a keyboard. Motor skills and motor control begin developing after birth, and will progress as children grow. Having good motor control also helps children explore the world around them, which can help with many other areas of development.”
I know this is something that will be reinforced in kindergarten, so I figured we could practice cutting. At one point, Amelia’s teacher said she could use a little more work on motor skill development, which surprised me. We are a LEGO family, and Amelia helps me put sets together all of the time. I would think putting those tiny Lego pieces together exhibit excellent motor skills.
So I told Amelia we were making a collage, and she wanted to know what one was. I explained the basic idea to her. We were going to find pictures we liked in the magazine, cut them out, and then glue them onto a piece of paper wherever we wanted. She loved the idea so we got started.
I found a nice background and started with that. It was a two-page spread of shells, and I thought it would make a great background. Then I started cutting out animals and people to stick on top.
Amelia went the other route. She cut out all of the cutest animals she could find and started gluing them wherever she wanted.
In the end, we had fun. Who wouldn’t when scissors and glue sticks are involved, right? Amelia was quite proud of her project. We’ve practiced with scissors in many other lessons since then, but this was the first. We should probably create some collages again soon.
Pod of One 