Art versus Craft: What it Means for Little People

I used to LOATHE the post-storytime craft activity at the public library. Every week, a few minutes after storytime, a librarian sets up some sort of reading-readiness project for the kids to do--stuff like coloring a picture of an apple tree and then gluing construction paper apples all over it, or making a paper bag puppet, or making a spider out of construction paper and pipe cleaners and hanging it from a coloring page web with yarn--you know the thing.

The thing is, though, that the projects are always very step-by-step, very procedural, and I'm very...not. I'm highly opposed to giving a child supplies and then telling her what to do with them, or showing her a finished project and instructing her how to do the same thing.

I'm all for establishment, such as "Let's listen to this Bob Marley CD and color how it makes us feel," or parameter-setting, such as "I want you to paint this picture frame for Uncle Chad," or even instruction, such as "Here's how to hold my expensive Micron pen. Don't push down too hard or you'll break it." And some stuff, such as my Jacquard fabric paints, is supervised VERY carefully when in use. But on the whole, I think that children's creativity is vastly more powerful than adult creativity, and I am strongly opposed to an unnecessary top-down, adult-controlled hindrance on that creativity.

In other words, unless it's absolutely necessary, don't tell a kid what to do.

The problem, however, is that Willow and Sydney LOVE these step-by-step craft projects. They always have. When each was under three years old I tried to shield her as much as possible from even knowing what the craft project was "supposed" to be--the resemblance of their paper plate "clocks" to the other children's paper plate clocks resided solely in their both being done on paper plates--but as they've grown more aware of the world around them and more adept at using the daily craft supplies of paper, glue, and scissors, they've come to adore this time. Witness:

They're making snowmen, of course, out of construction paper, paint stirrers, cotton balls, sticker dots, pom poms, markers, and glue sticks. I don't even know where to start.

It's been hard for me to even so much as resign myself to this kid's craft schlock, and I still don't enjoy it, but I do see how it holds value for the girls. Will, who has always been so much inside of herself, has always loved taking her completed project over to show Ms. Janet, who clearly loves each and every little child's project and enjoys discussing them in detail with each child. Sydney, who at times can barely settle herself long enough to eat a piece of toast, and who will fly off the handle if her sister bumps her arm in passing, will happily focus like nobody's business on any kind of project.

So it's interaction with a nurturing adult who is not their mother, and instruction following is important for developing logical ordering in thought and action, and...um?

And at least I don't have to worry that they will focus too much on making their projects look like the example:
Paint stirrers--who knew?

Science Fair: Observations of Ingredients--Non-Newtonian Fluids

I've been inspired by the Science Fair over at Ordinary Life Magic to put a little more science into the lives of my babies. The fact that it was difficult for me to come up with scientific concepts that the girls might have fun playing with tells me that we need to do this a LOT more often.

Remembering that mostly, however, the girls just like to play with stuff and get messy, this morning I set up a little project for them on the observation of primarily non-Newtonian fluids--i.e., I let them play with ketchup.

To do this project with two kids of about the same skill level, I put four similar substances, each on its own large, roomy plate, on the table. I wanted the girls to experiment with the viscosity of various non-Newtonian fluids (in preparation for making oobleck later), so I set out molasses, maple syrup, ketchup, and olive oil--the olive oil is a Newtonian fluid, so it's serving as the control, and also the yogurt and honey that I buy are too expensive for me to want to let the girls piddle around in them: I had each girl wet a dishtowel and put it next to her for wiping her hands on, and then I set each up on her own chair at the table, with two plates in front of her. I labeled a notecard for each girl for each substance, and I encouraged them to make observations, which I noted for them on the card.

I encouraged them to taste each fluid, which was a big hit with some substances-- --but not others.

I encouraged the girls to smell each substance, but I ended up not recording any observations about this since, alas, my poor babies have head colds and thus assured me that each substance smelled "like nothing, Momma."

I encouraged the girls to touch each substance, and recorded all their observations of sticky or slippery or smooth or yucky----but I really wanted them to make some subtle observations about each fluid's viscosity and its response to pressure, so I encouraged them to draw a picture in each substance and then tell me what happened. Both girls noticed that you couldn't draw a picture at all with the olive oil, that you could draw a picture with the maple syrup but it would "erase" right away, that a picture drawn with molasses would stay for a while and erase more slowly, and that a picture drawn in ketchup would stay forever: When each girl had finished her observations about the two substances in front of her, they switched chairs and observed the other girl's two substances.

The girls could have played with their non-Newtonian fluids all day (and licked maple syrup and ketchup off of their fingers ALL day), but after everything started looking well-licked and a little grody, I sent them off to wash their hands and faces REALLY well, and when they came back I set them to work drawing a picture of each substance on the front of its notecard.

Will's pictures were fairly true to life:

Sydney's pictures were HIGHLY interpretive:

The girls LOVED this project. They've already asked to do it again, and so tomorrow I'm thinking salt, and nutritional yeast, and brown sugar, and perhaps some weird spice that I'm ready to get rid of?

Little Kids Make Awesome Valentines

After the girls did their time making Valentines----their reward was to receive an ample supply of Valentines in return.

Montessori is probably a little different from many other schools, in that handmade Valentines are strongly encouraged (one is subject to militancy on many fronts when one's child is attending a fancy-pants private school--I also have to bring in homemade treats on the girls' birthday party days, and they can't have sugar, and if you try to send your kid to school in mittens that are too thin, you WILL get chastised). People are still allowed to be busy, so the girls always do get a store-bought Valentine or two in their bags (and one Valentine came with a piece of candy! I bet my life that the head teacher and at LEAST two sets of parents had a total fit about that one), but the beauty of the average preschooler's handmade Valentine really is a sight to behold.

Since this is Syd's first, and last, Montessori Valentine's Day, here are HER favorite handmade Valentines:

I also don't know if every little kid does this, or if the handmade factor makes them extra-special, but my girls TREASURE their Valentines. They carry them around, they pore over them, they painstakingly read/memorize each signature and greeting. For the last two years, Willow has literally loved her Valentines to death, and after some inevitable milk spill or bathtub accident I was left with absolutely zero momentos to hold onto for her.

This year, then, I'm afraid that in a few more days, before we've pushed our luck too far, the bags of Valentines will mysteriously disappear. They'll be rediscovered several years later in the girls' keepsake boxes, but I'll go to my grave denying any and all responsibility for the theft. The mystery, like the Valentines, will endure.

The 2010 Grandparent Calendar

Isn't the personalized photo calendar the basic go-to gift for every grandparent in the world? I can't even imagine what it must be like for those grandparents who have several sets of grandchildren--do they put a calendar up in every room, or perhaps just paste one whole wall full?

Since Matt's a graphic designer, he knows all of the local, independent printing companies in town, and I highly recommend printing your own swag local and independent. We've done everything from wedding invitations to birth announcements to these calendars from local, independent shops, and it's always been quick and cheap and of terrific quality. And Kinko's charges you to use the computer, which I think is sad.

Because I'm a big nerd, I insisted on arranging the photographs in such an order than the photo for each month in 2010 was taken during that same month in 2009. It makes a sweet retrospective of how the babies have grown:

February--at the Indianapolis Zoo

March--making Artist Trading Cards

April--matching outfits for Music Day

May--Sydney's third birthday

June--at Lake Michigan

July--in California

August--the first day of school

September--snuggling at Strange Folk

October--on the balance bikes at Bryan Park

November--trying out their new superhero capes

December--the Christmas photo

The beauty of blogging is that I remember all of these moments intimately--I wrote about each one on this blog the day or the day after each happened, saying things and offering details that I never would have remembered otherwise. I don't have to worry (as much) about not completing Willow's baby book, or even starting Sydney's (THAT one I worry about), because in many ways, this blog is my legacy to them of what it was like to share their childhoods with them and parent them as best as I could.

I really need to do Sydney's baby book sometime, however. That kid will TOTALLY call me out on it one day if I don't.

Decoupage So Easy, Even a Three-Year-Old Can Do It

Getting into a Montessori classroom is no easy feat. The Montessori classroom is the child's well-ordered, busy workspace, not the parent's, and while parents are free to observe their child's class at any time through a large two-way mirror, they are not welcome inside the classroom without an invitation.

Therefore, when I casually let it drop that I have spent not one, not two, but THREE entire afternoons in the girls' class, all the other Montessori parents look at me with shock and admiration and they say, "How? How did you manage that?"

It's all about the skillz, my friends. In my case, my skillz at gluing stuff to other stuff, as I spent an EXTREMELY busy three afternoons teaching 30 children, ages three to six, the fine art of decoupage.

The result? Awesomeness: In several previous class sessions, the children had the opportunity to do a pattern-making work using the metal insets. They drew on tracing paper with colored pencils, and could decorate their pattern however they liked. Later, one of the teachers cut around each pattern and set them aside for me.

Montessori lessons are basically taught one-on-one or one-on-thirty, so that children tend to either do things as a class, such as Spanish or music or community meetings, or with the sole attention of the teacher or a classmate. We set up my decoupage station as a work that children could choose one time, so that I stayed with the decoupage and when a child wanted to choose that work, she would go put on her smock and get in line. This was a little tiring for me, since I basically repeated the same three actions with 30 children in a row, but I still think it was the best way to give them the optimum process-oriented experience and still come away with a beautiful product to be auctioned off in a school fundraiser later this month.

Here Willow demonstrates the basic preschool decoupage technique:
On a table, I laid out every single decorated pattern that we had to work with. When it was a child's turn, I asked her to choose any pattern that she wanted. When she had one, I then asked her to choose any spot on the entire box to put her pattern, as long as it did not cover up another child's name (more on that later). Overlapping another pattern was fine:
When the child had a spot chosen, I handed her a sponge brush and let her dip it into a dish filled with Mod Podge. Then, I instructed her to paint the spot where she wanted to put her pattern all over with glue. After that, she laid down her pattern and I helped her smooth it out (not making a big deal about creases or bubbles--these are preschoolers here, and it was important to me that the project, while nice, authentically look like it had been created by preschoolers), and then I had her dip her brush back into the Mod Podge and paint over her pattern again. Decoupage is nice because you don't have to be neat or precise with the glue--as long as I kept drips and bubbles at bay, each overlapping layer of Mod Podge served only to strengthen the whole. In between kids during the three days, I painted the entire surface of the box several times with Mod Podge again, for a nice, durable surface.

Although I reserved the top of the box entirely for the decorated patterns, each child had also written her name on tracing paper, and a teacher had cut all of them out, so after each child had decoupaged her chosen pattern, I helped her find her name among all the other names, and then instructed her to find a spot on the sides of the box, not overlapping another child's name, to decoupage her own signature:You can see Sydney's signature just to the right of the big pattern in the middle there below:
And there's Willow's near the top on one side:This turned out to be a really excellent project to do with a large group of small children. Decoupage is simple enough, and forgiving enough, to really be done by a small child without being over-directed by an adult, and yet the result is quite sturdy and really pleasing.

AND it'll get you inside that Montessori Dutch door.

Craftster Read to Me Mommy Swap Goodness

I do a lot of swaps on Craftster, but the Read to Me Mommy swap may have just topped the 2008 Christmas in July Stashbuster swap (in which I had not one, but TWO swap angels step in for my flaky partner!) as my favorite swap to date.

The Read to Me Mommy swap was already set up to put me into nerdy heaven, what with the pleasure I took in sending off a copy of the girls' favorite pop-up encyclopedia, , and in making a variety of felt dinosaurs and a travel felt board (AND in finding an excuse to buy ), and in stencilling a parasaurolophus onto a child's T-shirt. But it turned out to be even better to receive my own swap package from my partner:

OCEAN-THEMED!!!

She sent an autographed copy of Seashells by the Seashore, a counting and shell identification book:
She sent shells, and stuff to decorate them with, if we ever get tired of just looking at them and playing with them as-is:She made a sewn matching game with hand-drawn illustrations:She made a beach bag out of beautiful fabric:And she made the most amazing, most elaborate, themed roll-up felt playset that I've ever seen:

If you like crafting for kiddos, especially crafting educational or extension activities, you should totally check out the Read to Me Mommy swap gallery, which is inspirational. There's a Harold and the Purple Crayon package that I possibly must recreate in every way.

The next Craftster swap that I'm currently signed up for is...wait for it...a DINOSAURS swap. My swap partner would like matchy stuff for herself and her sister, so it will be like crafting for my girls in the future! I bet they'll STILL like stuffed dinosaurs and stencilled shirts!

Snow Paint

It turns out that snow just doesn't come in enough garish colors to suit us, so......we painted it.

You will need:

• spray bottles (I bought small spray bottles brand-new from The Container Store the last time we went through St. Louis, just to have on hand for art projects like this)
• tap water
• liquid food coloring (not the professional-quality food coloring that you use for, you know, food, but the cheap-o McCormick stuff, which is really good for crafts)

Fill the spray bottles each about 4/5 full of tap water, then add at least 10 drops of food coloring to each bottle. Darker, more vivid colors will show up better in the snow than lighter colors or pastels will. I don't recommend that you use yellow at all, unless you want to sneak over in the night and do a neighbor's yard.

Before I give the spray bottles to the girls to use, I usually prime them by spraying them into the sink and I adjust the spray to a sort of concentrated mist.

And then, you spray!Since it continued to snow all day, most of our designs were eventually covered up, but it did turn us, for a while, once again into the yard that people stop and stare at (nude Jackson Pollack painting and front yard street-adjacent vegetable gardens also encourage that sort of behavior, we've found):There was ample snow stomping-- --and other assorted snow frolicking--

--yesterday, but although the public schools are having a Snow Day today, it is business as usual at Montessori. I'll be spending a third afternoon there working with the preschoolers and kindergartners on a decoupage project, but there are pinto beans in the crockpot, so my plan is to take the littles to the public library for a couple of hours after school.

Perhaps I can get some writing done there?