of schemas, action, thought and marks are interrelated (Athey, 1990). It is only later
that children differentiate their marks in terms of a school’s conventions and its
subject boundaries.Melanie’s ladybird
Melanie, 4:9, was exploring different layers of meaning through her marks and
through cutting out (see Figure 6.1).At this point I was needed elsewhere to work with some other children. When I later
asked the nursery teacher if I could talk to Melanie about her ‘dancing lady’, I discov-
ered she had already left to go home. I was fortunate in that Melanie’s mother had kept
what her daughter had made and the following day she returned with it. By now
Melanie had again altered what she had done. She had cut across it in several places
and her mother had ‘mended’ it. Melanie told her teacher ‘it’s a ladybird and it dances- (singing) la, la, la, la, la ...’. Her teacher observed that she thought it was ‘significant
that Melanie’s representations can change. At first the split in the lower half of the
paper had been reminiscent of legs, so it was a lady. The second time around possibly
the “lady” bit got transferred (word association) to a ladybird’ (Fiona, nursery teacher).
Kress points out that there is a strong ‘dynamic inter-relation between available
resources’ (Kress, 1997, p. 22) – in this case the paper, crayons and scissors – and the
‘maker’s shifting interest ... while it is on the page I can do “mental things” with it
... when it is off the page I can do physical things with it’ (Kress, 1997, p. 27).
Melanie had transformed marks on paper (suggesting a pattern on a lady’s dress) to
a lady and subsequently a ‘lady-bird’ who danced. As Pahl (1999a, p. 23) argues,
such objects have a ‘fluid quality: they appeared to be finished and then the chil-
dren would revise them’. In her study of making meaning in the nursery, Pahl pro-
poses that such ‘transitions from one kind of realism to another are particularly
interesting when we look at the work of young children’ (Pahl, 1999a, p. 27).
Melanie’s ladybird is one of many ‘modes’ of representation. We include it here to
indicate the significance of early, multi-modal ways in which children explore
symbols, messages and meanings. What was Melanie’s ladybird? Was it creative art
or technology? Perhaps it might be described as small world play or a play with
puppets? What are the links with early drawing, writing or mathematics?
One of the problems that teachers face, particularly once children move into
school, is the apparent constraints of subject-led curricula which can require us to
label learning neatly and put it in boxes. But young children do not make meaning
Having made various marks on her paper Melanie used some scissors to make
cuts from the bottom of the paper and then removed a portion of it. She lifted
the paper and moved it across the table top calling happily to other children
‘she’s dancing!’ She added some more marks, telling the children nearby ‘she’s got
a pretty dress’ and then repeated her movements to make her paper ‘dance’.
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