I Know This Tells Me Something...

My fifth graders are learning how to do contour drawing. It's a pretty big leap ahead for them in terms of learning to draw realistically. The variety of skill level says a lot about where a child is developmentally and how their brain works. Mostly, you get representations of shoes that range from realistic/above grade level, to symbolic depictions of shoes/below grade level.




Then you come across the occassional drawing in which the artist is seeing something very different than the rest of the class. This shoe looks as though the seams have been removed and the shoe is flattened out. It reminds me of a depiction of a world globe flattened out. I'm sure this says a lot about how this child sees and thinks, but not having special ed or art therapy training, I'm just not sure what it does say.