We try to let the children experience art in many different forms. One of the forms they love is photography. They have their own digital camera that was donated to the class last year by Leah's mom and dad. They use the camera all the time. After the first snow storm in January we took the children on a nature walk with the camera. We encouraged them to look around very carefully and take pictures of anything that captured their attention. Visual discrimination is a very important skill for reading and writing. This is one of the reasons taking away art education in school programs is so detrimental to children's learning. Children that have to opportunity to experience the world in many different ways, not just by reading about it or listening to a teacher lecture, have greater recall and process information into their long term memory better and more efficiently. Children who have more hands-on experience and have multiple opportunities for those experiences make more neural connections in the brain which in turn makes learning new information easier. This is why we do nature walks often and we have the children document these walks through photography, journaling and story telling. This are critical components to reaching back into their memories and pulling out previous information. Children at this age learn best through imitation and repetition, so by role modeling and providing lots of opportunities to repeat activities your child has the best chance of creating long term neural pathways in the brain that create "highways" for future learning. Enjoy the pictures. Some where taking by the children and some where taken by me when the children pointed out an object they found interesting. I encourage you to repeat this activity at home several times over the seasons. The recent ice and snow will create some wonderful opportunities to capture fantastic ice pictures.
