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Since the 1800s, researchers have studied children’s drawings to explore their abilities and conceptual understanding. Traditionally, the focus has been on drawings as products. This study, however, shifts the perspective to ‘drawing as process’, aiming to investigate how knowledge emerges while children draw. Grounded in socio-materialist theories, I approach drawing and knowledge production asdynamic processes involving children, drawing materials, composition, and conceptual ideas. The study is part of the Child, City, Future project, in which three preschools engaged with urban infrastructure topics like transport systems and water management. This presentation focuses on asession where five five-year-old children were asked to draw “how water gets to the tap.” The analysis was conducted in two steps. First, I examined the video recordings without sound, focusing on how the children interacted with the drawing materials. Second, I incorporated the sound to add a verbal layer to the analysis.The preliminary findings reveal that children are deeply “entangled” with the drawing materials. For example, they constantly hold pens in their hands, often without drawing. Overall, the findings show that children’s non-verbal actions correspond more closely to “how water gets to the tap” than theirverbal statements. A common pattern is that they start drawing a blue area (the sea or a lake) at the bottom of the paper and connect it to other elements (such as a tap, toilet, or water treatment plant) with blue lines and thin rectangles, the latter representing pipes. The children also move their fingertips above their drawings to illustrate water flow. However, when sound is added to the analysis, it becomes apparent that the children say very little about how water gets to the tap. These findings suggest that children’s collaboration with drawing materials plays a vital role in how they engage with topics in technology education.

References

Knight, L. (2008). Communication and transformation through collaboration: Rethinking drawing activities in early childhood. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 9(4), 306-316. https://doi.org/10.2304/ciec.2008.9.4.306

Penn, L. R. (2019). Drawing, bodies, and difference: Heterocorporeal dialogs and other intra-actions in children’s classroom drawing. Studies in Art Education, 60(2), 103–119. https://doi.org/10.1080/00393541.2019.1600224