I had a first grader come in and I asked him to draw me a person. He did. It was the one on the left with the orange strip (which hides his name). So then I pulled out "Mat Man" with some slight modifications to his face since I was missing some pieces, lol. We went through "Mat Man", which was developed by Handwriting Without Tears, and we talked about his body, his arms and legs, his ears, etc etc etc...then I drew Mat Man while he watched and I explained. Finally, he drew Mat Man, see drawing on right. This lesson was probably 10 minutes long. Pretty impressive, huh? To go from that left drawing to right drawing in a 10 minute span? We'll need to do some follow-up to try to gain consistency.
*For those of you who are going to ask about the secret of Mat Man...there isn't much of one. I showed him up above. He has a big blue body, stick arms and legs, curves for his head, etc...well you see him. Nothing is missing besides the hair (we ended using pencils for hair). I had to improvise his eyes and nose and smile etc, and in fact don't remember what they normally use for that. It's basically just the idea of showing them via 3-D objects and Handwriting Without Tears materials what a person looks like, before taking it to paper.
They also have songs about Mat Man. For kids who are auditory learners, they are pretty catchy :)
6 comments:
HWT also has an interactive mat man game for free on their site- it sings the song and cues them to place the next piece. I love mat man!
Mat man does have wonderful results. The classic mat man does not have hair, and uses the small curve (same as ears) for the mouth, and the little lines for feet. Teachers are in charge of making circles for eyes and nose as well as hands.
Cheryl - I will have to check that out. Didn't know that. Anonymous - ahhhh. Cool. Good to know. Well, I've been winging it by adding hair and using other random stuff for the face. :) thanks for the clarification!! It's been a long time since I took the course and I had forgotten.
We use Mat Mat in in preschool and it works great in teaching the children not only how to draw a person but we also use it to show different shapes by changing out the rectangle for other shapes, square, heart, diamond, circle and so on. We also use the sticks for making letters. Works great year to year!
This is the same drawing as my 4-year old kid. Though he puts more details like putting ribbon if it's a girl and a cap if it's a boy.
Susan G - great idea on the shapes! I'll have to try that out. Thanks!!!
Sarah - will you please respond to this? I can't decide if you are spam or not because when I click on you, it goes to income therapy website which is typically spam, but your comments don't seem spam-like...
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