Art in our Home

I checked the book, The Artful Parent by Jean Van't Hul from the library a couple of months ago and I was so inspired and moved by it that I began diving deep into the importance of process art for children.  My little home library on children's art actually really grew and I have been reading voraciously on the topic. A lot of my creativity is being channeled into these projects and I'd like so much to share it with you all.  

Usually I have three goals for Liam to accomplish every day.  An art activity, a sensory activity, and to be engaged in a meaningful work activity for our home.  Usually art is done in the mornings after breakfast, or it is done after nap.  Sometimes Liam is really into it and activities can last up to an hour, and sometimes it can last about a minute.  I try not to get discouraged when activities last a minute with two marks on the page and clean up for it lasts about twenty.  It's about the process - not the product.  It's about the experience I'm giving my child.  I repeat that to myself when I get discouraged and it really helps.  

Painting with a paint brush is a common activity.  It has been so interesting to see Liam's grip change from a hammer grip to a modified pencil grip! Although painting with a paintbrush is a common activity here, it is often action art that really engages him.  

Painting with cars was a big hit.  We don't tend to buy plastic toys for him, I am a big fan of a few wooden toys.  Once in a while though plastic toys make their way into our home as gifts or hand me downs, and they have actually found a place in our play during art. They are great because they wash so easily! 

Q-tip pointillism was an activity from The Artful Parent.  It's a great activity since most of the materials are already on hand.  

Marble Art.  Oh this activity.  We must have done this activity at least twenty five times in the past two months.  He just keeps asking for it! This activity engages so many different things.  He is really into transferring with tongs, so developmentally, this is right on track with him.  Rolling the marbles around with the cardboard box is extremely entertaining for this little guy.  Oh I wish I could capture every smile and laugh that this experience has given! 

Having Liam help to clean up after art is a big thing for me.  I want him to associate clean up with the process of making art.  A bucket of warm soapy water is always readied for him and then he helps me to rinse all of the materials used.  Often times, it becomes a sensory game and water gets everywhere... but that's ok I remind myself.  What is spilled water to the experience that my child is getting? 

And last but not least, my personal favorite part.  Documenting his work.  A date, a note about the materials, and a small note about the process.  We have a wire bound book used for a lot of his art, but also those art activities on loose bits of paper get housed in a container.  I plan on making him an art portfolio for his birthday so we can all have an artifact of his art during his first year that we really  started doing art.

Do you do art with your children? I would love to hear about it!

The colors of fall

Yesterday, all of my tricks came out of the bag in attempt to try and distract this little guy from the fact that razor sharp teeth are trying to cut through his tender and swollen gums.  Popsicles and ice cubes wrapped in dishcloths were eaten frequently, lavender oil foot massages, spending time cuddled in the sling, and playing with the art trunk.  I haven't brought this trunk down for him before, so it was fun to watch him discover all of its contents. 

Since Liam was born, I started collecting art supplies that we could use when he got a little bit older.  Surplus markers from when I taught at the school,  Prang watercolors from the thrift store (fifty cents a piece! Whoo hoo!) large color stamp pads gifted to us from my sister, a pack of moleskin journals, and then a few bottles of kitchen things that had gotten old to make art with: beans, pasta, lentils... thing like that.  

Liam was drawn to first the large ink pads, so I chose the colors that traditionally indicate fall, which to be honest has been a bit hard to teach him about considering that we don't have any deciduous trees with changing leaves around us, no apple orchards to visit, not a lot of the clear signs that the season is changing here.  I still haven't figured it out yet - how to teach him about fall here in the islands.  I have a few ideas about teaching him about the world and their different seasons, but I still draw a blank when it comes closer to home.  But I still have time! Which I am very grateful for!

Inspired by the pumpkin patch outing over the weekend, I did want to do a bit of traditional autumn colored art with him.  So we took all of the warm colors and made hand prints.  Liam really enjoyed discovering this new medium.  He had fun pushing down into the ink pad and looking at how the ink saturated his hands.  When I tried to encourage him to put his hands on the paper he protested a bit, so I stopped and let him be to discover.  This process is about him, I had to remind myself. Not necessarily about a finished product.

But the few handprints that we managed made me smile and this little piece went directly onto the fridge to sit for a while before eventually getting filed away.  On the back went the date, the medium, and a few notes about what it is and how he seemed to interact with the materials.  I have it in my mind to create him a yearly art book with samples of the best of his art.  I thought he would love to be able to look back when he was older to see how his art has evolved. Or to just see how much fun we had.

It is getting to that point now where he is really starting to understand.  I don't have to guide him as much.  He understands that when there is paper set with markers, or crayons, or paints, or ink pads now, that we put color to paper - and oh how he smiles as those few marks are made on that white white space.  Creating is starting to become so much fun with him.

What shall we make next I wonder....

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Aloha.

Broken Crayons

Art time.  I have been seriously thinking about this for a while. Like seriously thinking about it.  It is such a large desire of mine for Liam to grow in a creative environment. Modeling a creative environment, I am finding is very vital.  We still haven't found our rhythm yet when it comes to art.  I find that when I am sitting down at the kitchen table journaling, that is when he seems to be most interested in coloring.  He joins me with his art book and a few crayons, and I model by making borders for whatever I am journaling about.

I know what art time looks like in my head.  I know the space that I want art time to have. I have a list in my head of all of the special crayons and paints that I want to make for him to use during art time. So because all of those factors haven't lined up - I've been a bit uninspired to do art with him at home.  But you know what is inspiring?  That regardless of the broken crayons that I dug up from the bottom of my stationary drawer that we are using to currently color with - we still have a good time. We still create.  So many of those precious moments are passing me by because everything in life didn't match the picture in my head.  No more.  Now we will sit down and create.  Because it isn't always so much about the materials right? It's about the moment.  And I so want those precious moments with him. So here's to broken crayons and moleskin journals and creative moments in the now.  

Fall Break Church Class

This post is very different from my usual posts.  It's a bit of a reflection and a bit of a lesson plan in format.  But last week was fall break on the island and I had ran a three day church class for the kids in our church.  There was art and laughter and singing and sharing. There was refusal to participate and then there was modeling and inclusion.  It has been such a long time since I have been able to teach and it was so wonderful to be able to start again.

When I was on Oahu, I taught the older girls Sunday school class.  It was a very joyful time, preparing lessons and materials for the girls, learning about them and spending time with them.  There is something so special about listening to their stories.  Encouraging their questions. My church on Oahu also hosted a church camp every summer, inviting all of the sister churches to bring themselves and their children.  There were games and singing and beach swims and so many other fun things for all children and adults that came.

The church that I attend now doesn't have a children's class, and my  heart has been so heavy to be able to reach out to the children that do attend.  To provide for them the opportunity to learn age appropriate material and to be amongst their peers.  To encourage and learn from one another.  So I asked the moms if they would be interested in a two hours a day for three days children's church class during fall break.  They were very excited about it and planned on being there.

I knew I wanted to incorporate a lot of new things that have inspired me since Liam.  Things that I have had in the back of my mind for when he was older.  The purpose of this post is to share with you some of those activities and the sources that I pulled them from.

Here is what our schedule looked like during those three days

8:00-8:30 Circle Time
        Circle time included singing and story telling. I had put together song books for each child. Just a simple word document stapled together.  In it included songs that could be sung with motions like 'The wise man and the foolish man', others included songs to be sung with the guitar like "All in All".

For story time, I told the story of Abraham using story stones.  The ages for the class ranged from 10 to 2 years old so I knew that reading large texts would be difficult for the younger ones. A story would be told every day, while each day new details to the story were added. The children made a set of story tokens, similar to story stones but instead of stones they used circular disks of card stock.  They drew pictures  and then used them to retell their stories to each other.  Homework was given to use their story tokens to retell their stories every night to their parents.  The older ones were able to really develop their stories with several details while the youngest ones were able to play with my set of stones.  We worked on vocabulary items while the older ones retold to each other, learning words like daddy, mommy, baby, and also proper nouns like Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac.

Story stones were inspired from this book. 

8:30-9:00 Art 
We had an art activity every day. When I taught before, I didn't press art or a handcraft during my classes.  I have been doing a lot of reading about early child development and most of them stress the importance of art and craft.  From my teaching days in the language classroom I understood the importance of students creating an artifact of their learning experience.  So that is what I set out to do.  I pulled inspiration from this book, and this blog  for ideas that we could do.

The first day they created their story tokens, another activity taken from this book.   To modify for the younger ones, the youngest ones were given a picture of the same content to color while the older ones work.

The second day was the creation of their puppets for a puppet show of the final chapter that we would go over.  Simple brown paper bags, markers, glue, and construction paper were placed on the table and the children created their puppets for their preassigned characters.

The third day was the creation of the backdrop for the puppet show.  A large cardboard box acted as our canvas and we created a mountain tree scene.  Tree trunks were pre-drawn on the box and each child was given a box of markers to color in their trunks. Once they were done they were given large stamp pads to use their handprints to create the leaves for their trees.  These stamp pads are amazing! We have been using them to document Liam's growing feet! My sister gifted our set to us but you can find something similar here.  A lot of the moms loved these stamp pads and told me they were going to order them for their own children.

9:00-9:15 Snack 
Each mom brought a healthy snack for her child and the children were able to visit and play trivia games ran by the parents while I set up for the after snack game.

9:15-9:45 Interactive Game 
We played a game a day and on the third day we ran a rehearsal for our puppet show.

The first game was a trust game to teach the children about what it means to have faith in a person.  Toys were scattered on the floor and represented 'mines'.  Children were given partners and a blindfold. One person would be blindfolded and the other person would have to lead them out of the mines to safety.  If a child stepped on a 'mine' then they would have to wait for five seconds before continuing on.  When their partner was safely across then the children traded places.  A follow up discussion took place after the activity about the children's experiences.

The second game was a musical chair game.  The intent on this game was to learn a song that we would be singing after our puppet show.  The children really liked this one.  I didn't have small chairs that would work for the smaller children so I took pieces of paper and taped them down in a circle.  Children walked around the circle and then would have to sit down cross legged when the music stopped.  Those that were out became a part of the music group that sang our song for the game.

The third day was used as a rehearsal for our show. The children did a reading twice at the table and then with the stage.

9:45-10:00 Closing Circle 
Songs from our song books were sung and then we closed in prayer.

Sunday Sharing 
We had the children share what we learned during our Church Class with the whole church.  The sharing was comprised of singing and movements, a sharing of something they learned this week, retelling using their story tokens, a puppet show, and a final song.

This is one of the children retelling to some of our members using his story tokens

It was such an amazing week and all of the children enjoyed themselves so much.  It was a blessing for me and all of the moms were asking if maybe this could be done every school break.  I asked Ross, who was solely responsible for Liam during this time and he took a deep breath and nodded his head and agreed that it would be a good thing.  So many ideas are racing through my mind for winter break.  It is good to teach again. To learn and to modify and to grow.  But most importantly to be able to share about God, who has been so good to me and has given me so much.

Blessing everybody.

Story Rocks

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up" ~ Pablo Pacasso 

Oh how true those words are. Drawing is never something I really took too.  Making pictures were never something I thought I excelled at. I think I delighted more in crocheting as a child then I did doing art projects. But there is something so delightful about drawing and painting.  Motherhood, I am learning, is giving me an amazing opportunity to rediscover the joy of crafting in different mediums as I create things for Liam.

Story rocks have been on my inspiration board for a long while.  All of those white rocks that Liam and I have been gathering at the beach were always gathered in my mind for this sole purpose.  Story rocks.  Inspired from this book .

I started our set with six little rocks to begin with. Originally intended to teach a bible story to a children's workshop for the children at church during fall break, but these rocks really have an amazing ability to be anything and everything we want in so many different stories.  That's the beauty of it.  As we add more story rocks to our collection, the number of stories we are able to tell are limitless.

The process that I used to make them was very simple.  I cleaned my rocks really well and then set them to dry.  Then I sketched what I wanted my pictures to look like in a sketch book and then traced them onto the rocks in pencil.  I used acrylic paints to paint them and then I outlined them with a sharpie.  The sharpie really came in handy when doing the eyes.  I chose to leave the mouth off on the other little people after I did the baby because I didn't want to limit them to the single emotion of being happy by adding smiles.

Overall I am really happy with the end results and I am looking forward to doing more.  I am really trying to overcome my fearful thoughts of "I can't draw" and am working towards the joy that comes in just making pictures.

Happy Thursday everybody! Aloha.

First art

I have been waiting for this. Waiting patiently for the day when this would first come. Liam's first art piece. It won't be winning any prizes or be worth much in terms of monetary value... but oh my, it is valuable. To me, it means so much. It's the beginning of a certain dream I have for him concerning his childhood and art. It's the beginning of sharing with him the wonders of creating. I know it doesn't look like much, but it holds a lot of hope and dreams for this little mama. This my friends is the first thing that Liam painted on his own. Like, really painted on his own. Without my assistance. He understood the concept - touch paint with his hands, and then touch the paper. And for three glorious minutes, art was created.

Liam attends a preschool two days a week for two hours. It is a type of preschool where I go with him, and interact with him at various centers. They always have art. Several types of art actually. From collage making, to coloring, stamp working, or yes, even painting. So lately I have been trying to work with Liam at those crafting stations. I think it is time. Time to introduce art supplies slowly to this little one. And slowly, he is grasping the concepts.

So it is time to start putting money aside for supplies and to begin creating an art basket for him, and I am really inspired by this post on what to put in his basket. And inspiration to keep doing art with him? This post has always gotten me really excited for when Liam would be ready to start making art.

And do you want to know what a sentimental ninny I am? Liam just happened to be wearing his mama made pants the day that we did this painting. He was wearing more of the paint I think then he was getting on the paper. I threw them in the wash right when we got home. But a few souvenir stains remain. And you want to know what? I'm cool with it. Because those stains show a whole day of fun and discovery and first experiences. And I am so blessed that he was able to experience them in an article of clothing that was made for him with love.

So what shall we create next? The possibilities are endless!