The 12th March 2019 was a wet, windy and overall miserable day; that is until a few hours were spent with the friendly and welcoming 'Little Pearls' parent and child group. The group is a small close knit group with an age range of children from 9 months to 3 years, based from St Nicholas Church in Bradwell and held every Tuesday afternoon from 1.45 - 3.30pm.
Initial contact was made with the group leader Julie Nicholls who is a former primary school teacher and current volunteer library manager amongst other roles within the local community, to see if the group would be a suitable place for the activity. Julie welcomed the opportunity and was very supportive in allowing the session within the group.
Three activities were planned for the afternoon to give the children a variety of things to do;
Shooting stars: A series of different sized and coloured stars were made available and strips of paper were cut to attach to star. These works will form part of the exhibition within the space display.
Job role faces: Cut-out face shapes in a number of skin tones were made available along with different job role hats (soldier, chef, pilot, nurse, police officer and firefighter). The children were able to pick which face and hat they would wear and also could choose hair colour and whether the person would be male or female.
Colouring sheets of people in job roles: Children were given opportunity to decorate the created characters in their own way.
Given the expected age range of children the activities were simplified to sticking tasks, with all items for the pictures being pre-cut before the session; however, some children wished to cut out additional embellishments for their faces so they were given a selection of paper and were supervised during scissor usage to ensure safety.
Overall the children who participated appeared to enjoy the activities, in particular the job role faces. It was interesting to see how the boys created what is predisposed as stereotypical 'male' roles (pilot and firefighter) and the girls created 'female' roles (nurses and chefs). Some children depicted the jobs which their parents worked therefore the stereotype was determined through their profession.
"This is my mummy she wears a hat like this because she is a nurse and she has eyes in the back of her head, so I'm going to put eyes on the back of my face." (Gracie, age 3)
The innocence of the pictures created was very pleasing and will hopefully prove a great addition to the exhibition in May. One thing which was noticed was the lack of awareness or even concern of skin tone, many children chose faces not of their own skin tone, which show how racial stereotypes do not seem to be a factor in young children's views and opinions of adults both in their daily lives and professions.
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