Miss Kate's favorite indoor activity of late: gluing magazine pictures onto construction paper. The hot days this week have driven us inside during the better part of the day, which is rather hard. It's one thing to be driven inside by cold weather, but to have to look out the window at a gorgeous, sunshine filled day, only to step outside to drown in humidity and shrivel under the scorching temperatures, well, that's just no fun. So much for my committment to not complain about the heat! :)
Each time Kate stays with my grandmother, she comes home with a little stack of beautiful bird pictures, cut from Grandmama's bird magazines. I admire my grandmother for many reasons, but I remember as a child myself, always being impressed by her resourcefulness when it came to entertainment. Boredom was never an option. She could throw together the most magical child friendly tea party using simply acorns and leaves. I suppose this talent grew from growing up in a large family during the Great Depression. Anyway, Kate and I had been meaning to make a "bird book" using those pictures for awhile, and so that's what we did today.
It was so much fun, we moved on to a dog and cat book as well. This was Kate's first experience with glue. I must confess, arts and crafts for kids is not something that comes naturally to me. I think that's probably why, during my teaching days, I stuck with high school aged kids. I have to overcome not only the impatience that makes me want to step in and do it for her (which would totally defeat the purpose), but also an aversion to sticky glue covered table tops and the other messes that arise from toddler art.
But I actually found that it's pretty easy to let go of these silly grown up worries, once you see the excitement, determination and sense of purpose that fills a child when left to their own devices with a project. Because that's really the point of it all. That's why art and free play are so important to children. Not so that they may grow up to become artists (although that would be fine!), but so that they may learn to explore their world and make independent discoveries without fear of failure. Sure, on the surface, it's just drawing, painting, or in this case, gluing pictures onto paper, but really, it's so much more than that. The final product, sometimes delivered to Mama with pride and enthusiasm, and other times abandoned on the table as something more exciting beckons, well, that's not really the point. It's all about the process: the process of using her own imagination and two little hands to create something that didn't exist before.
Miss Kate's favorite indoor activity of late: gluing magazine pictures onto construction paper. The hot days this week have driven us inside during the better part of the day, which is rather hard. It's one thing to be driven inside by cold weather, but to have to look out the window at a gorgeous, sunshine filled day, only to step outside to drown in humidity and shrivel under the scorching temperatures, well, that's just no fun. So much for my committment to not complain about the heat! :)
Each time Kate stays with my grandmother, she comes home with a little stack of beautiful bird pictures, cut from Grandmama's bird magazines. I admire my grandmother for many reasons, but I remember as a child myself, always being impressed by her resourcefulness when it came to entertainment. Boredom was never an option. She could throw together the most magical child friendly tea party using simply acorns and leaves. I suppose this talent grew from growing up in a large family during the Great Depression. Anyway, Kate and I had been meaning to make a "bird book" using those pictures for awhile, and so that's what we did today.
It was so much fun, we moved on to a dog and cat book as well. This was Kate's first experience with glue. I must confess, arts and crafts for kids is not something that comes naturally to me. I think that's probably why, during my teaching days, I stuck with high school aged kids. I have to overcome not only the impatience that makes me want to step in and do it for her (which would totally defeat the purpose), but also an aversion to sticky glue covered table tops and the other messes that arise from toddler art.
But I actually found that it's pretty easy to let go of these silly grown up worries, once you see the excitement, determination and sense of purpose that fills a child when left to their own devices with a project. Because that's really the point of it all. That's why art and free play are so important to children. Not so that they may grow up to become artists (although that would be fine!), but so that they may learn to explore their world and make independent discoveries without fear of failure. Sure, on the surface, it's just drawing, painting, or in this case, gluing pictures onto paper, but really, it's so much more than that. The final product, sometimes delivered to Mama with pride and enthusiasm, and other times abandoned on the table as something more exciting beckons, well, that's not really the point. It's all about the process: the process of using her own imagination and two little hands to create something that didn't exist before. 
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