Back to school

The right time is the week before. These sheets show a school with its bell, its windows and the path that leads to it: three things a child forms an idea of long before setting foot there, and that are better looked at calmly, pencil in hand.

They ask for a hand that is already steady — the front of the building and the window panes are made of small areas. A four-year-old finishes one in half an hour. At two, give an animal sheet instead: school can wait another year.

Once the first day has passed, they do not lose their point. They come back out in January, when class starts again after the holidays, or on the evening a child tells the day badly: coloring the playground often helps to talk about it again.

A classroom coloring sequence, in five sessions