Our Salad Spinner Paintings

My wee man really loves painting. It's turning into an activity that can occupy him a whole morning. I am really trying my best these days to make the most of his eagerness to explore different materials and see "how you do?" What a simple and great idea I found on my favourite spot the Imagination Tree. All it involves is a salad spinner and some paint. It's a great way for him to keep exploring different shapes and this time he even helped me cut them out. Then we just used blue tack to hold the shape in place. The wee man maybe got a bit over zealous in the amount of paint he squeezed into the salad spinner but all part of the fun. A great tip is to try and keep the blobs of paint in the middle and after a spin once you can add more blobs to the same shape if you want to fill out with some more colour. For the last one we used some shiny paper which added great effect too and the paint seemed to slide nicely across it. Of course I'm not sure what made him think about it but he also asked to add some glitter. All I can say is Damien Hirst eat your heart out!

Painting with Stencils

Everything in moderation

So it was not long ago I was thinking how much my son loves to watch TV. I justified the amount he watched because I did balance it with spending time out and about but when we were home it just seemed that the TV or a DVD were always on. We even had the bad habit of having it on while we ate our meals as it kept him quiet sitting still at the table. I guess that is where we recognized the need to stop watching so much TV, trying to put an end to "needing" the TV on during meals. To be honest it was not so hard to achieve and only took a few days for him to get used to it. I'll be honest my wee man does not really do sitting still while eating and we now have a pile of books which we have to read while we eat but somehow I prefer this.

What it has made me realise is that it is more me relying on an easy way out than my wee man having any sort of dependency. Once certain boundaries are set he actually finds it quite easy to follow. So with less TV his other interests just seem to have come alive. I have bravely entered into the world of arts and crafts, he loves imaginative play and has rediscovered so many toys, and my lover of books is back again! He loves to be involved in the cooking and the cleaning and instead of finding his involvement frustrating (which it can be with the mess and the determination to do it all himself) I am embracing it all and just taking my time with it. I actually find myself asking him sometimes now don't you want to sit down and watch something so I can get some proper housecleaning done.

He still watches his fair share of tv and I really don't mind. Balance and moderation has always been a motto I go by. I have learnt that it is best not to say I will never when it comes to parenting because more than likely you will. Just because I give him a taste for something, like tv, chocolate or juice, does not mean he is going to want it all the time. He quickly learns when things are appropriate and that sometimes he just can't have it right now. Some things surprisingly like chocolate he only wants a little of now and again and maybe JUST MAYBE that is because he knows it's there and he can get some more again in the future.

So everything in moderation tends to be my parenting motto. This includes bubble painting by the way which can be a huge frustrating mess all by itself!

Free Painting

I have a lot of respect for parents who do arts and crafts with their children. The wee man has done a lot with nursery. Yet other than a little bit of crayons and markers at home I have not really explored arts and crafts with the wee man. I then managed to do a bit of gluing and sticking with him lasting all of 5 minutes. I finally decided to play it big and braved up and got the paints out. The only really place to do it is in our kitchen as that is the only non carpeted area in our flat. I got lots of paper and stuck it down with some tape much to the wee man's amusement. He loves tape and I think he thought that was the planned activity. When I got some little finger paint pots out the excitement brewed. He looked at me rather cautiously not really believing that he could stick his finger in and go for it. It was simple really. 3 finger paint pots of blue, green and red. 2 different types of paint brushes. Go. It was all about the process and not really about the end result. It was messy but it was beautiful.

This post was inspired by the wonderful Mammasaurus and her idea of "The Creative Project" to let children lead the way in their creativity.