I’m always searching for the right time to introduce concepts to Rémy, keeping an eye out for any hints he might be throwing my way. A few months back, I was dressing him and mindlessly talking him through what I was doing. I told him that his shirt covered his tummy. He responded by lifting up his shirt and poking himself in the belly button.
There was my hint.
We’ve been working on learning parts of the body ever since. True to form, I’ve been looking for ways to practice identifying body parts through art and play. There’s been some songs, some dancing, and now Michelangelo.
I could have gone with any number of artists. So many of them have made a life’s work out of depicting the human form. But most of them owe a debt of gratitude to Michelango, whose work during the Renaissance helped people see that creating art around the human body was not a sin.
Not to mention the fact that he’s just darn good. The Pieta is still in my top 20. So I knew that I wanted Rémy to get to know the master at some point.
As an introduction, I started with some of his sketches of the body. These studies were done in preparation for paintings and sculptures. Part of his process was isolating and perfecting each area of the body, so these sketches make perfect body cards.
Cards that show different parts of the body are a great learning tool that can be utilized in a variety of ways, and these cards will work well for several activities we will be working on in the next few weeks. I created them to help build up his vocabulary in both English and German, but I’ve also made them available as a free resource in English/Spanish, English/French, and English Only. I’m always up for creating more in different languages based on interest.
The first activity that we used the cards for was a simple self identification practice. We would flip through the cards, and he would point to different parts of his body. His favorite body word by far is knee, and he loves to show it to me.
Next we moved on to identification on Mama. We would flip through the cards and he would point to different parts of my body. Once we had practiced that, I knew I was ready to set out a tray on his shelves for him to choose individual exploration.
The tray contains the cards, pieces of black painters tape, and a small wooden artist’s mannequin taped down for stability. The activity requires Remy to pull off the pieces of painters tape stuck to the tray and place them on the parts of the mannequin’s body represented on the card.
It is an activity that will take some time to master, and I am sure it will make periodic appearances on his shelves for the next several months. Currently, he works on the tray both independently and with Mama’s help. This will change as his skill level improves. Right now, it takes quite a bit of concentration to pull up the painters tape and get it onto the mannequin. It is fine motor work that he finds very compelling.
When the cards are not being used on this tray, they will be making appearances in our early dance classes. These times where we focus on different types of movement are the perfect moments to explore the body and the interesting moves that can be created with each part. We have just started body part isolation dances, where Rémy has discovered that some parts are much easier to move than others.
Since we are using the cards as a way to not only explore body parts, but also introduce Michelangelo, we will be pairing his practices with books about the artist. The books I could get my hands on are definitely aimed towards a slightly older audience, but I can still flip through the pages and talk him through the artist’s life and art. I have set the book Michelangelo out with his practice tray so that we can dive into some of the artist’s more famous works.
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