When my son turned 3, I took him into his pediatrician for his yearly well visit. During the visit, his pediatrician asked me about my plans for preschool. I usually go into these visits very well prepared. But that question caught me off guard. Is it really time for preschool already? Man, these years have flown by! I thought to myself. I suppose its true that most parents would be sending a child the same age as my son off to preschool in the fall.
I hadn't really given it much thought, partially because it snuck up on me and partially because I wasn't sure I ever had serious intentions of sending him. I explained that I hadn't given it a whole lot of thought and that I didn't really intend on sending him in the fall. I went on to say that neither Anthony nor I attended preschool and that I like to think we turned out OK.
She explained to me that in her opinion, while two years aren't really necessary, she could see where one year would be beneficial. She explained that it would give him contact with kids his age and let him develop his social skills, get him prepared for a classroom setting (i.e. following rules), and that it would give him the opportunity to engage in "art things" (that's not the term she used), such as making crafts, painting, etc., which aren't always possible for busy parents to engage their kids in on a regular basis.
I could see her point. But, while he doesn't have daily contact with kids his age, he attends Story Time at the library, is in Sunday School at church, and I schedule play dates for him as much as our schedule allows. ST and SS do help prepare him for a classroom setting, and they also give him some opportunities to engage in "art things".
Art is the one area that I felt like I could improve upon at home however. As much stuff as my son and I do together, as much time as we spend together, for whatever reason we don't color much, don't paint, don't do crafts, don't really do any of that. I really felt bad once I realized that and felt like he was missing out on an opportunity to nurture his artistic and creative side while spending time with me.
So I set out to do at least on craft a week with him as well as spend more time coloring/painting/drawing with him. I must say that he is beyond excited about all the new things we are doing together. Crafts are now one of his favorite things to do, and when he gets bored he often comes to me and says, "I want to do a craft!".
So I thought I would start sharing some of them with you, in case you have little ones and would like to try them out.
One week in Sunday School, he learned about David and David's love of music. They learned that David played the harp to his flock and to the king. And then they made a harp in SS. On the little take home paper, as an extension of what they learned, it asked you to find other things around the house you could use to make music. The idea of a guitar sounded cool and from there, I rounded up what I thought we would need to make it and we got started.
Here's what you need:
A shoe box
A paper towel tube
Tape (duct tape or packaging tape)
Wide Ribbon
Various sizes/widths of rubber bands
Crayons/Markers
Scissors
1. Cut a medium sized whole in the lid much like you would see in a guitar.
2. Let your child decorate the inside (or bottom) of the lid.
3. Once your child has finished, have him/her help you pick out various rubber bands and stretch
them across the lid.
4. Place the lid on top of the show box upside down (so that the bottom of the lid is showing) and
tape it to the shoe box.
5. Tape the paper towel tube to one end of the show box to make the handle of the guitar.
6. Tape one end of the ribbon to one of the top corners of the shoe box and tape the other end to the
other top corner of the shoe box to create the strap.
Voila!
This is by far his favorite one we have done together thus far. He was so excited about it that when it was time to wake Anthony up, he said he wanted to "drum it the whole way upstairs to get Daddy up". The lingo needs a bit of work, but we'll work on that later.
Sincerely,
The Crafty Mom
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