Art that works for my boys

I try to take inspiration from everywhere. Sometimes it is in talking to a mom or dad about a new way to do things and trying it out at home. More often than not it was been in my Parent Education classes. Today our instructor during Erik's 3 year old class created an inspiring discussion that really got me thinking. It was about art and projects for preschoolers.

I have always shied away from complicated projects with my boys because they don't have the patience to sit through them, but today Teacher Karen really got me thinking. Maybe I am approaching this all wrong. Maybe its not about creating an elaborate art project like I keep seeing on all these blogs, but providing them tools and giving them the opportunity to learn. I have a whole list of things I want to buy and an idea of how I want to store it from the class discussion, but when I got home and had an hour to kill I thought to myself, TRY SOMETHING NEW.

Usually when we are winding how for nap I start reading them books, we play a game or we head upstairs and play with our trains. Today I decided to look inside my cabinets for a project. I had this rice sitting there that a friend gave to me when she moved that I was never going to use, I had the tin left over from Christmas, and then I grabbed a couple of everyday kitchen utensils, two ice cream scoops, a measuring cup, a coffee scoop and headed outside.

It was an unusually hot and sunny day today so I went for the only shade in our backyard. In retrospect I will probably create shade and do this on a smooth table but you'll find out why.

So I started off by pouring all the rice in the tin and told Erik and Elliot, just play, but the only rule is they can't dump it on the grass or the table. I just did one scoop into a container as demonstration. Then I got my camera stepped back and watched them work.

Elliot just kind of touched and explored everything and then walked off to do something else, but Erik touched each item and scooped up rice to see how it worked.

I really loved this project because I could just see his little three year old mind figuring it out, learning how everything worked together and just problem solving. Its exactly how I want my little boys to approach life.

Then Elliot who was mostly watching and wandering around the backyard decided this project might be something worth his time and found a way to help his brother.

Then Erik started coming up with different creative ideas, is this is why I love projects like this. It helps them to think and see the world differently. Erik wanted to build a sandcastle of the rice and I told him to give it a try to see how it works. They also played "cheers" with the rice bottles another fun game for both.

For my little boys who won't sit more than 5-10 minutes for any art project, they played with this for almost 30 minutes and I think it would have lasted longer if they weren't both ready for their naps.

This gets better. So like I said, I would choose a smoother table next time I start because the rice got in the wood slats, I wasn't thinking I just looked for the only shade in our backyard. Erik got to learn another valuable lesson, clean up!

Clean up took all of five minutes. The rice is back in the originally bottles and the utensils back in the kitchen. Total cost of this science experiment, $0, the results absolutely priceless.