Project Box Ideas

So often as moms we get down on ourselves for what we “should” do with our kids. We think about all the creative moms who have great make-up, a clean house, crafty kids, and paper mache pumpkins lining their entry ways.

Nota bene: I can’t help you much with the clean house or the great make-up. Sorry.

But, I have learned that with some preparation on my part, my kids end up doing a whole lot of creative things they wouldn’t otherwise do. So, I came up with the project box. My preparation for project time is handily contained in one box that stores easily and keeps everything ready for that moment we need it. I did forget to mention one thing in the video. I also like to keep on hand a plastic tablecloth. They are often on sale at Wal-Mart as the seasons or holidays change, so that’s a good time to stock up on a couple.

If you want to work on doing creative projects with your kids more frequently, I have two other ideas. First, set aside some time. Maybe it’s only once a week or twice a month, but decide that you’ll play together creatively for a period of time and schedule it. Tell the kids. They’ll hold you to it, and the anticipation and planning can be fun with older kids.

Second, learn to recognize that the time spent cleaning up is usually shorter than the time spent playing. Generally, if you do a little cost-benefit analysis, you’ll realize that it’s going to be worth it. It’s worth it for the time the kids are busy, the learning, growing, and exploring that happens, and often the time you get to yourself to do something like read. This often helps me to be more willing to allow spontaneous project play. If I’ve got at least an hour, it’s always worth the mess to play with the project box.

Finally, although my children are willing to play independently with the project box (especially as they get older), I have never regretted taking some time and playing with them. I love the conversations we have and the insights I get into their lives and minds. You can’t beat an afternoon playing with the kids!

Having said all this, I can still use any ideas you may have on fostering creative project work with kids. Please leave a comment and share what has worked for you.

How do you fit crafty kinds of things into your busy mom days?

Tags: art, creativity, fine motor skills

Book Review: Rainbow Fish

Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister

First off, my apologies for posting so late today (tonight). Our kids are on a fall break, and we’ve been trying to spend some time as a family. And most unfortunately, I have some scheduling issues with my podcasting host. So here we finally are…

I will be stunned and shocked if you are not able to find this book at your library–both your town library and your school library. Rainbow Fish is extremely popular with teachers and parents. If you want to buy it, as usual you can add pennies to our tip jar and purchase through Amazon. But truly, you should find it with out any problem in a book order.

Real Mom Activities: I am suggesting a conversation with your kids about what it means to be a good friend and how important sharing is. Ask your kids what kinds of things they can do to share with others. If it works for your family, you might decide to go through your toy box and share some toys with those who are less fortunate. I try to do this with my kids at least twice a year for two reasons. First, I really do want them to learn how blessed they are and how often others do without. I think it is critical to teach children about service to others concrete examples and experiences. And second, it seems that every year my kids accumulate WAY more toys and stuff than they can possibly love. So, this is also a great to to get some of the clutter out of my house in a positive manner.

Super Mom Activities: As I mentioned this book is really popular with teachers. As a result, you can hardly do a search on Google without bumping into a teacher with a project for Rainbow Fish. And, frankly, if you ask me, all these activities are for super moms. You can truly pick just about any one and have a great activity. We’d love to see pictures of your art. Leave us a comment with a link to your Super Mom Moment.

Tags: art, book reviews, literacy, sensory activities

Daily Journals

I think that daily journal writing was the most detested part of my elementary school years. Oddly, I am not a horrible writer. I just hated journal writing. Honestly, I still don’t find journal writing to be a terribly inspiring pastime. So, it’s not surprising to me that lots of kids (and adults!) resist the idea of daily writing. However, it’s hard to argue with the valuable educational outcomes of writing. Barnabas Emenogu, summarizing current research on the benefits of writing in the early grades, concludes:

Amongst other things, I have suggested that a key benefit of getting elementary students to start writing early is that the amount of writing they do during their school years has a strong impact on the way they think, the amount they read, and the quality of their writing as adults. Motivating students to write in many forms for many reasons will enhance not only their achievement but quite possibly their life chances.

Just this summer, I again realized how much daily writing can help kids.  I was amazed at the progress Dillon with our consistent (not daily) journal writing.  It was definitely worth the pain it took to get the habit started.  Daily journal writing remained somewhat challenging for both of us, but I reassured myself with this tidbit from The National Council of Teachers of English:

The “language arts” develop in concert. Drawing supports writing, writing supports reading; opportunity to use multiple expressions of language increases language learning and ability.

So, I feel pretty good that any kind of literacy activity contributes to the overall goal of developing reading and writing skills.  With that in mind, I learned to be flexible about what constitutes a journal entry. After we spent a few weeks developing the basic concept of journal entries,  I let the kids do different kinds of entries. You can easily search online and come up with all kinds of creative journal ideas, but here’s a few that have worked for us:

• lists of favorite or most disliked things
• free association activities
• acrostic name poems
• comic strip stories
• riddles and jokes
• recipes
• maps
• sketches and explanations of inventions

As I mentioned in the video, two crucial components of a journal writing at our house are story paper and a decent list of writing prompts. I happen to like the calendar format of that link, but you can search online and find many excellent compilations of journal prompts for kids.

Now that school has started, I’ve slacked off a bit. I know that Dylan has daily writing in class, so I’ve kind of given myself a pass for now. However, if you need to help someone get over a hump in reading or writing, daily writing is almost certain to help.  And making it fun, is going to help even more.

So do you have any great ideas for keeping journals with kids?  Let us know, because it seems that keeping writing fresh and new is the best way to keep it going.

Tags: art, creativity, dylan, early elementary, reading, writing

Writing Books with Kids

Writing books can be as simple or as complicated as you want to make it. I think that simpler tends to work better most of the time. The core benefit of writing books with children is developing and practicing literacy skills and imagination. This should happen as often as possible. At my house, simple is most likely to happen often and complicated is most likely to happen on a day that mom is feeling really good about things. This is why my focus here is on writing books instead of making books.

However, sometimes it is important to make a book particularly special for a child. Be sure to always give plenty of encouragement, praise and reinforcement as children engage in the process of creating a book. Don’t focus on the end product as much as you focus on their efforts and growth. Also, look for ways to reduce frustration over the process.

How to encourage writing books:

• Have some pre-made blank books available to your children as part of their art supplies
• Write letters to family members about exciting things that happen in your day or week
• Prompt children to make up a silly or different ending for favorite book or movie
• Prompt children to follow the story patterns of favorite books or movies
• Use story paper
• Be willing to write the words for the books younger children illustrate
• Accept and encourage invented spelling with beginning writers

Here’s a .pdf of a book my son created one morning while I was sleeping in. He was 6 years old when he worked on this and it was one of the first times he did a book alone.

How do you get your kids involved in writing and storytelling?

Tags: art, early elementary, fine motor skills, preschool, writing