Colouring pictures ~ Yes or No

[suewhit]

i personally think as part of the mark making area as continous provision that the child can access freely if they should wish , there is definately a place for them. We add them as an enhancement to compliment the childrens own learning e.g one of our children is mobile phone mad a button presser but beginning to rec numerals. we put some make your own to colour and cut out with large numbers on them (crayola site) children who wished to used them . they phoned home language and role play it introduced number rec for those who wanted to give it a go, they used mark making skills and also good scissor skills. As a self initiated task with adult help to extend where needed whats wrong with that?
sue

[Chloe]

On a course (a year ago!) we were told that colouring in was a no no.Let the child do their own drawing as you can learn far more than giving a child a picture to colour in. To-day at the mother and toddler group gave the children pens,plain paper the older ones were drawing pictures ie flowers and my charge was doing circles,thats a van he said then he told me he was doing a letter for his Daddy,lots of straight lines in a row,he was thrilled and then asked me if I could make a fan!