I found this super creative mommy blog called Pink and Green Mama that is full of art ideas and kids activities. I loved her idea of making sensory boxes to help "hand eye coordination, fine motor development, and serves as a great sensory processing integration experience." She makes various themed sensory boxes throughout the year. I started my daughter with rice and we ended up adding in tissue paper. She says this is the beach and the buttons are seashells. We also pretended the buttons were treasure so she had fun digging them out ;)
She loves the feeling of rice and she even put her feet in it to feel it. It's amazing how on the first day she played with it for 45 minutes just like what the Pink and Green Mama blog said. My husband also seems to love playing with it as much my daughter and I do too :D I guess we're both big children. We've also tried popcorn kernels and I can't wait to try out more variety of materials.
This month's new theme at my daughter's Kindermusik class is "Splash." Her teacher had switched to the ABC Music & Me program where there is a new theme every month. Although I liked the old program that had 16 weeks for a bigger theme and a slower pace, I'm starting to like the new theme change every month.
There are songs about bathtime, bubbles, underwater, fishes, and more. I really like this month's theme. I especially like the slow, peaceful song where we pretended to be bubbles floating around...it is so graceful-like a ballet dance. Another song called, "What's Above the Sea" talks about a little fish asking his/her father what's above the sea. Each time they go above to see something different and return back underwater. When I played this song for my daughter a few days ago, I had her drawing along with the narrative song. This is what she came up with (I drew the clouds and one of the whales).
It was so fun watching my daughter create a picture about a song she learned just a week ago. Later, she was able to retell the picture to her dad which is a great for language development. Whenever I make art, I always like to put on music in the background-it just adds to the whole relaxing feeling of art making. When I did my practice teaching a few years ago, my host teacher showed me a "hand over hand" method of having a student put his/her hand over another student's hand while he/she drew with the music and then they switched. It was really an amazing sight. It was about being there at the moment and enjoying the lines created on the page...art making is really about the process-something I've got to keep in mind when I create.
I must really like Paintlounge because we went back for the third time yesterday. The first two times I've gone, I've painted this and this. Today my husband and I decided to take our little girl there for the first time. I've been telling her so much about the place and it's only fair to bring her there for the experience :). I was also very curious of what she'll end up painting.
Since there was a paint bar, we let our little girl choose what colours she would like on her palette. (While the paints are acrylic, we knew that our young daughter wouldn't put it in her mouth and we had really close supervision of her too.) Then we let her choose the tools to use. She began with the paintbrush as seen here.
Later, she moved on to use about 20 other tools (a variety of stamps, sponges, fly swatter, mats, ball) to make her mark making on the canvas. I would say her painting was an experimentation of tools rather than a representational painting of something in real life as my husband and I asked many times to tell use about her painting and she didn't say anything about it.
What I really enjoyed about the experience was seeing my daughter show her own creative expression. She chose her own colours, she kept going back for her own tools, and she told us when she was done painting. As much as my husband and I liked how the initial painting looked and wanted to take the painting before my daughter added more to it, we didn't, of course.
I believe that art is where one creatively express themselves and it doesn't matter what the product ends up looking. It's all about the process, the journey that makes me love art so much. I think this is why my art tends to stray far, far away from a reproduction or copy of anything...if I wanted to paint an exact copy of a picture, why wouldn't I just go get a photo printed from the nearest photo centre? :) Copying a picture is good practice for technique but does nothing for the creative soul. It's what's different from the original that makes something one of a kind and human.
I can't believe it but it's been 15 weeks since I started taking my daughter to Kindermusik classes at a private home studio. I first heard about Kindermusik through my cousin in laws who took their children to these music classes when their children were young. As a part time stay at home mom, I'm always looking for different and new experiences for my daughter.
I believe that the more she experiences as a young child, the more development there is. Brain development for children is an amazing thing and although I don't know all the specifics about it, I learned that different, repeated experiences will strengthen the connections in a child's brain creating a pathway for the way the child learns. I did a quick google search and came upon this article, Understanding Brain Development in Children by Sean Brothersome. The following lines from the article really stood out to me, "The interactions that parents assist with in a child's
environment are what spur the growth and pattern of these connections
in the brain.
As the synapses in a child's brain are strengthened through
repeated experiences, connections and pathways are formed that
structure the way a child learns.
If a pathway is not used, it's eliminated based on the "use it
or lose it" principle. Things you do
a single time, either good or bad, are somewhat less likely to
have an effect on brain development."
When I took my daughter to Kindermusik class, I had the intention of getting her to socialize for more kids her age. What ended up happening was she was the only student in the class (until recently, in the last 4 weeks of class, 2 more kids joined the class). Despite this, it was really amazing to see how fast she caught on to the words and movements of the songs. Over the weeks, I've seen great development. She's more open at expressing herself through song and today, she stepped out of her shy little shell and said a lot of things out loud in front of the other kids (she gets really shy when there's other kids or adults around). She's also learning to share and take turns with the others during the last few weeks.
Kindermusik classes are normally structured with a theme. My daughter started her class with a Milk and Cookies theme where there were songs related to food, kitchen, and groceries. There are home materials provided such as a small instrument, a CD with songs learned in class, and a few books some full of ideas of what to do with your little one. I found the CD was so nice to have to include some music time during a regular day with my daughter. During class, the songs are sang with opportunities to use different instruments to tap, clap, shake along with the music as well as scarves, parachutes, and much more. There is a lot of imaginary play as children pretend to pour tea, buy groceries, wait for toast to pop. It's a lot of fun and I always feel refreshed and happy after the class. I guess music has a way of uplifting everyone's spirits.
I would definitely recommend Kindermusik classes for its variety of music, imaginary play, uses of different instruments, and children socializing opportunity but any classes are great for a different experience. And of course, experiences are not restricted to classes...interactions with your child, different things you do at home are all wonderful experiences that may shape who your child becomes.
Today I went back to Paintlounge with a couple of friends and celebrated our birthdays together (yes, our birthdays are all around the same time). This is the painting I came up with.
Just like last time, this painting is for my daughter. It has a little Arrietty, a little of my daughter, and a little of a photo inspiration all put into it. The quote is another Dr. Suess one, "A person's a person, no matter how small."
A few days ago, I found out about a place called, Paintlounge.
After seeing their website, I was too attracted to justify not going (after all, there is barely enough time for a shower as a mom, let alone paint). It's social painting with a little cafe on the side (a similar idea my husband and I talked about years ago). I'm so glad I went because I realized how much I missed painting and making art in general. I also came up with a little painting to give to my daughter. So long to those university days of depressing, social issue paintings and art. Hello to my new mommy series of happy, cutesy paintings. I'm hoping to eventually set up my own home art studio...we'll see.
Sorry for the poor picture. The quote says "Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope." by Dr. Suess. I showed this to my daughter and I told her it's about imagination. Imagination is when you pretend to be different things like a princess, a tiger, and more. Also, you can see wonderful things when you use it. After, she pointed to the Toopy and Binoo Imagination song from the broadway CD and said "same same." She wanted me to play the song and hold her as we danced and while I explained the painting to her. Yesterday, whenever I mentioned imagination, she wanted me to play the song and we used our imagination with fabrics...pretending it's snowpants, water for swimming, wings of a bird, a scarf, clothes to hang up to dry. It's amazing how much an almost 2 yr knows and does. :)
Speaking of arting and kids, I came upon a neat installation with the "I wish I came up with it" feeling.
A blank room.
Thousands of stickers.
Kids.
Two weeks.
Voila!
The Obliteration Room by Yayoi Kusama. You can read about it here.
Maybe I should use that idea for my little girl :D
