Sunday, July 7, 2013

Activities for Learning



One of my apprehensions about homeschooling circled around whether I'd be able to come up with activities for learning.  Where could I find the inspiration for the dinosaur cutouts with macaroni noodle bones?  I mean, I know that there is pintrest! - but that requires sitting down to research, having the right materials, knowing the steps and how to teach them; it seemed daunting to get started.

At school every day it is the teacher's job to have many activities for the kids to work on.  These activities correspond to the lesson for the week, or the time of the year.  Ever since my kids have been in day care (since 12 months old), they've been coming home with these cute little art projects made from construction paper.  There's a drawer in their room that I've been stuffing them into.  Some have gone up on the wall, and reluctantly some in the recycling bin.



The library has tons of books on craft activities for kids, great books on making art from leaves and trash.    Then there is the before mentioned Pintrest.  There are curriculums  and mail in craft kits: where someone sends you all the materials in a box in the mail each month for craft activities.

So really, there are tons of options out there to help me get inspired and crafting like a pro Kindergarten teacher..

So what's my problem?

A year and a half ago I blogged about picking up a gingerbread man kit from Trader Joe's.  When I gave it to the kids to decorate, I observed Kaio looking at the box to see the image, then copying how it looked on the box.  I contemplated whether he learned to do this in school or not.  Well now I'm convinced he did (see A Subtle Act of Creative Defiance). I've seen him take this copy-the-example approach in other boxed craft activities too, and he does it without determination in his eye, but with a vacant subservience.  Like he's fallen into a pattern of how to approach the projects.

Back when Kaio was in school and daycare and the construction paper craft activities came home, Kaio was never that excited about showing them to me.  They were usually just stuffed in his bag, discarded.  I could ask about them and he'd explain that's a turkey, or a pilgrim hat, or a fire work, whatever.  He gets much more excited showing me his latest Lego starship.  Last Sunday he spent half the day building pirate ships and sail boats out of legos and trying to make on float in the bath tub.



So as I was saying, I was so worried about what activities the kids would do at home and how they would survive without seasonally appropriate crafts.

Well, I'm not worried anymore.  behold exhibit A, B & C:

One night I asked Kaio if he'd bring me a book to read him.  He responded that he wanted to make his own and read it to me.  So he got the paper, the oil pastels, and bound it with staples.   The next day we laminated it with contact paper.

Nala then, needed to make her own book too.
She called it the book of changes (like the Tao Te Ching), and each page shows the changes from day to night.


Another book Nala created with different types of flowers Starting from left to right: daisy, tulip, another daisy, lego flower, green flower. Bottom left to right: dandelion, sunflower, tomato flower, water flower.

Exhibit D:

Lego submarine.  You try to figure out how to make legos sink.  It's not easy.  He weighted it with a rock inside the submarine.

Exhibit F:

Rocket Ship.  Nala's in the background manning the control station.  

and Furthermore:

A trip to the craft store with a $5 spending limit


 Every pony likes baby racoon's tree

A swan eating a fish 

Tyrannosaurus and his favorite squeaky bunny toy named squeaky  

A dropship 

 A tank

Yoda refuling Ahsoka Tano's Space Shuttle

Rock painting 

A new skirt

So basically, I'm not worried about preparing daily craft activities for them anymore.  Original arts and crafts projects just exhale from their being.  An inescapable product of their childhood experience.  And the less parameters placed around this creativity, the more truth seeps out of their expressions.   
By recognizing these little events as just as valid as those macaroni dinosaur bone activities, I learn to take some pressure off myself.  They are teaching me that I don't need to be feeding them information.  
They are doing just fine.

5 comments:

  1. Beautifully written, and the pictures were making me giggle (yoda?). Children are indeed highly creative, messy creatures all on their own. I really love your post! Excellent examples here of letting the children lead. I shared this on my Facebook page, and will definitely be following you!

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    1. Thank you Aubrey, so nice to read your posts too.

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  2. What great inspiration! I see the projects coming home from Sunday school and feel bad that I'm not great at setting up schooly activities for my kids. Sometimes my head gets in the way when I think "what the heck is the use of this activity?" "Why would they find fulfillment in this?". And when I do put something together to do it's almost certainly a disaster. My four year old would rather build with her Legos or reenact a movie or book scene with whatever she can find.

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    Replies
    1. so funny you say that because it looks like you guys have lots of crafty activities going on. Love your blog!

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  3. What great inspiration! I see the projects coming home from Sunday school and feel bad that I'm not great at setting up schooly activities for my kids. Sometimes my head gets in the way when I think "what the heck is the use of this activity?" "Why would they find fulfillment in this?". And when I do put something together to do it's almost certainly a disaster. My four year old would rather build with her Legos or reenact a movie or book scene with whatever she can find.

    ReplyDelete

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