So in my former life, I was a teacher....I spent the majority of my career teaching Language Arts (reading, writing...grammar when I could sneak it in) to 7th and 8th graders. Actually, not a lot has changed....I'm still teaching a lot of L.A. and the maturity of 2 and 4 year olds *is* a lot like that of 12-15 year olds :)
Anyway, while I was teaching the writing process, I was known for some....out of the box ways to combat writer's block as well as editing and proofreading. One of my favorites was to tell 15 year old boys to lay on the floor and write in crayon. Yep...crayon...worked every time. Well, every time they were willing to try it. There is something paralizing about holding a pencil and staring at a blank page. But while holding a crayon, they're so focused on how rediculous writing with a crayon is that they forget they were stuck and the ideas FLOW!!
Apparently it's the same with little kids. Not so much from a writer's block perspective, but from a it's-really-the-same-activity-but-because-we've-changed-one-thing-Mommy-buys-herself-more-time-to-cook-dinner perspective. My four year old has been coloring and making cards in the afternoon all week. She just made her umteenth card for Daddy, but I wasn't quite finished getting dinner in the oven and I didn't want to turn on the TV for them......so....
Black construction paper and yellow chalk! A whole new world of coloring discovery.
It's the little things.
To steal a line from one of my favorite blogs: "It's great to be a homeschooler." :)
Oh, and sorry there are no pictures of our latest art work. My camera is MIA and my Droid has gremlins...grrr...but that's a different blog post.
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