I had two great desires at the same time: to celebrate the 18 months of our daughter Soniya and to organize children for joint art project. Finally, I decided to unite these two things.
How did the idea of children’s art group come to my mind?
One day I came across the blog called The Artful Parent which I have been reading since then. Its author, Jean, the mother of two charming girls (one of whom arrived only a couple of months ago) started her blog partly to chronicle and share the art experiences they had with the art group, and also as a way for her to focus more on what it means to her to be an artful parent: to encourage creative expression, imagination, joyfulness, and a love of learning, not just in her daughters but in the entire family. She drew and painted her way through childhood, then went on to study art history and studio art at Wellesley College, worked an art museum and an art magazine (though later her work sis not connect her with art any more). After her first daughter was born, her interest in art was revitalized and she realized that she wanted to raise her little one in an art-rich environment and to encourage her creativity and imagination as much as possible. Having read several books on teaching art to children, Jean started the Toddler Art Group with several other moms and their toddlers (who were of 12 mo then). They met weekly for two years and again this past summer, doing everything from body painting and paper maché bowls to printing with flowers and making wood scrap sculptures not forgetting about the basics: painting, drawing, and collaging.
I also would like to follow Jean’s steps trying to involve our Soniya in the atmosphere of art as often as possible. Why painting is very useful for kids, you can learn in the article “Scribles – It Is Serious! Or What, How and Why Our Children Draw”. Kids love imitating the ones in company of whose they are in. And making some art project together with other kids is always much fun for them. As for me, I could clearly see that involving the child into the art process is very important for the parent himself – it really helps focus on beauty and art not leaving an opportunity and time to pay attention to negative things in life…
And here I am calling to our friends-mums inviting them to a meditation (it is nice to balance oneself before starting something), painting and dinner. Only Vera and her daughter Bazhena (5 yr), Olga and her son Zhenya (6,5 mo) were able to come. Foreseeing such a variety of ages, I tried to find some task which could be interesting both for Bazhena and our Soniya. Do you remember our article «Painting with Toddlers: Art-balls»? For the two girls and Vera, I prepared three boxes with balls of differenttexture and white sheets of paper. As soon as their hands touched the paint, imagination awakened and joyful exclamations were heard: “Oh! What nice colour appears! Wow, Interesting dots from this massage ball!»
Our works will tell you what mood we were in while painting 
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Arseny, being a 7-months-old baby, liked 
It is wise to ask yourself: why do I need to edit the picture? (if you do not have such a question, jump onto the next paragraph) First of all, it is pleasant to look at bright and clear photos. Second, elementary skills of editing pictures may be useful when you are making presents (for the ideas, visit 
