As long as I can remember I wanted Children. I have 3.
Even before preschool, there were coloring books and playdoh.
When they started school,
I was in there as much as possible, helping out, eating lunch, and, of coure, Doin' Crafts!
What a Grand way to nurture your Inner Child
and Be a Great Paren.
I HIGHLY recommend spending even just an hour a week doing a craft or artistic endeavor with your child.
The experience is Life Long.
So it comes to no surprise that it is time for a Autumn/Halloween project. For some reason, I was really stressing about it this year. I couldn't seem to find an age appropriate craft. The kids seemed to old to be doing most of what I found. When I say it was down to the wire, it was, like, dangling....
I headed to the craft store and even though I had been through a week earlier, I tried again.
This time everything clicked!
I found enough wooden pumpkin ornaments, two styles, A tall pumpkin, and the short round pumpkin.
Bought:
1 Small Green GLiTTer,
1 Large and 1 Small Coppery Orange GLiTTer,
2 SPooLs of Bright Green Thin Ribbon,
3 ShEEtS Sparkly Black Felt,
and a package of Mini~Plastic Fall Leaves in just the exact amount of Kids!
Woo Hoo!
I really was buMMed, because I was worried it was too baby-ish.
NO CHOICE.
Picked out, checked out, sorted out.
I have a box of small plastic bags that zip shut. My mother gave them to me after she cleaned out her closet, and got rid of her jewelry making stuff.
There's, like, a BILLION! of them, and they seem to brEEd worse than Tribbles (coming sOOn to a blog near You). But they are great for pre packaging art supplies too!
I count them out, fill them with Glitter, foil cutouts, whatever gOOdies need packing, pre cut EVERYTHING! pack up and head out.
Now one thing about working with children is you have to have levels of Patience, Tolerance, and Enjoyment in the Face of Said~Patience&Tolerlance~testing.
Simple.
As the project progressed, there were kids that were actually having trouble with the process. They had total freedom to decorate their pumpkins be it Halloween style or Autumn style (yes, we don't want UPset anybody). They couldn't do it or it was difficult for them.
BabyGirl was there, she's 4, and She knew exactly what to do.
I was sitting at the table thinking about that, when the Teacher walked over and said "its hard to believe that something like this would be difficult, but since they never do it at home, they don't know what to do"
I have to say, that floored Me!
Yes, yes, it was an Ephiphany.........truly.
and it was a Shame.
As far back as I can remember, I was CoLoRiNg, CuTTiNg, and GLuEing everything I could. I just assumed that these were normal things.
Apparantly, not any more.
Which makes it even more important to GET OFF YOUR ARSE!! AND SPEND TIME WITH YOUR CHILD!
Everything worked out in the end.
The Kids had fun and
I had the most pleasant of surprises looking at all the different ways the Kids had decorated their pumpkin. Some were outstanding!
I did not think to bring my camera AT ALL, but they were great.
