New art space

The kitchen needs some serious attention tonight but I am avoiding it through blogging. As soon as I write this post I am off to clean dishes and scrub the floor, I promise. I figure blogging is for a good cause, right? Saving memories? Maybe telling a few people about a fun thing you can do with your kids? Helping remind myself of fun ideas for future brown trout babies?

Today we set up an art table for H. In keeping with the Montessori method I tried to keep the space simple so as to not overwhelm H. The idea is if you give a young child too much, i.e. 50 crayons, they won't be able to focus because the choice of colors are too overwhelming. So, I found a little box that I have had for at least a decade and placed in on his art table. Inside there are three crayons, purple, orange, and green. (I can be very OCD with these things, so I will rotate out the colors initially in groups of primary, secondary, or tertiary colors to help H begin to organize information (colors) in meaningful groupings.) Also, on the table is a pad of sketch paper from my art days long gone.

Once the table was set up, I showed H how to take out a crayon, draw on the paper, and then put the crayon back in the box. He was thrilled and spent the next ten minutes taking the crayons in and out of the box. It was only at the end of the ten minutes that he made some marks on the paper.

Now the challenge will be switching out the art materials every couple of weeks. Ideally, I will have a few different art activities for H and I will rotate them out so that he does not get bored. Now I just need to come up with a few more art activities...


We helped H right the box of crayons after his excitement in the video
and then he was ready to make some marks on the page.