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Painting with Children. Finger Painting. From Abstraction to Realism

December 15, 2009 in Developing, Life with Kids is Easy | 1 comment

Soniya got acquainted with finger paints on the day of her first birthday (I decided to fill her day with “untraditional” activities :) ). She attentively watched me opening the jar with blue paint, drawing it with my finger and putting the paint onto the sheet of paper. Then she did just the same – till some certain stage: instead of the paper, the paint went into her mouth (on all her five fingers!)

Afterwards, I ventured to show her the jars with finger paints only in three months. And we started with untraditional art – you can read about our first painting in our article “Art-balls”. Next time, Soniya created “picturesque” canvasses without the help of any improvised means, only with her fingers and palms.

However, painting was a success only when the child was in a good mood. Sometimes I placed a sheet of paper and paints in front of Soniya and she seemed not to know what to begin with: she made a line with the paint on her finger and that was it. The child needed to rise onto the next stage in painting! But what could it be?

We tried untraditional methods of painting. Mirror image painting. It is really much fun! We made about 10 paintings at a time!

painting with toddlers: finger paints

painting with toddlers: methods and techniques

But one cannot eternally paint applying one and the same technique. Imprinting and Read the rest of this entry »

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Discovering World Cultures, or the 3rd Meeting of the Children’s Art-group

December 10, 2009 in Developing, Life with Kids is Easy | 2 comments

Thinking over the forthcoming meeting of the children’s art-group, I decided that it would be a nice idea to devote the meeting to some certain topic/image. As we are only starting organizing children’s art meetings at our place, why not devote the meeting on Sunday to Shri Ganesha? Why to him? In Indian mythology Shri Ganesha is considered to be the Deity (or, in other words, an aspect of God Almighty) who protects children, their innocence and purity, he also helps when you start something new. Why Indian mythology? Our government announced year 2009 a year of India in Russia :) (well, we just like Shri Ganesha :) and we try to show children the understanding of and respect for different cultures).

Today there were three kids at our art-meeting: Soniya (1,5), Kirill (3,5) and Bazhena (5,5). We showed them a picture of Shri Ganesha and asked them what qualities they thought he had? “He is kind, honest, wise and he is very obedient to his mother. He also wants us to have such qualities!”

Indian culture-Shri Ganesha

Then we told the children the legend about the creation of Shri Ganesha (why he’s got an elephant’s head).Red flowers (red is the colour of Shri Ganesha) and sweet things (Ganesha likes them very much) added special atmosphere to our today’s meeting.

The art&craft part was also devoted to Shri Ganesha. We discussed his appearance beforehand: he’s got a trunk, big belly, one tusk, four hands, one of which gives blessings, another holds sweets and in the other two hands there are weapons to fight with evil things. His transport is, according to the legend, a little mouse. And again this craft was appropriate for both a 1,5-year-old and a 5,5-year-old. I think I have already got used to such conditions :)

crafts from platicine

On the cardboard I drew the contours of a boy-elephant. The children put glue onto the elements of the image and then poured semolina mixed with kum-kum (Indian clay) there – Ganesha should turn out red.

simple crafts with children

Then Read the rest of this entry »

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Handmade Vases – by Children of Different Age, or the 2nd Meeting of the Children’s Art-Group

November 20, 2009 in Creative Work, Developing, Entertaining, Life with Kids is Easy | 3 comments

On Friday evening, in joyful anticipation, I am going to the Art Store! There are so many things for art now! Wow! But this time I need some certain things – on Sunday children are gathering for the art meeting at our place…

Today our art-group consisted of 4 children: from 1,5 to 7,5 yr. At the beginning, traditionally, a meditation part: we are teaching the kids to work with their attention, to feel the vibrations. But all this – through beauty and joy! For every meeting we (Soniya takes an active part in this process :) try to decorate everything beautifully in our room. One of the elements which adds festive mood – flowers! 18-mo-old Soniya loves to visit the flower shop and choose flowers together with her mummy and then proudly carry them home. Vera with her two little ones also drops in at the flower shop and then Bazhena and Kirill hand tulips or chrysanthemums over to me when I open the front door for them :) In my opinion, the beauty of nature, even its small element, helps forming of the aesthetic perception of the world.

The calm part of the program gives place to games (Soniya’s toys attracts the elder kids :) ). And we also spontaneously turn on the video with the dance “Ranu Ranu” which causes real joy!

    That was the dance we were trying to perform :) – watch the video

Both adults and children were dancing. Kids copy the movements so easily – one is just surprised looking at them! For the future, we decided to include some dancing element as a physical warm-up into all our art-meetings.

children’s meetings

So what about art itself? :) Impressed by Natalie’s and Arseny’s experience , we also were making pen and pencil holders (but for us those were vases :)   ).

The technique is very simple: to make balls from modeling clay, to roll them out with a rolling pin through a plastic bag on a piece of cardboard, to decorate them with some balls of food foil and then to roll the cardboard in a pipe. For little Soniya, I was making the balls myself, she only stuck them to the cardboard. For the elder kids, the task was more complicated: Read the rest of this entry »

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How to Celebrate 18 Mo, or How to Start a Children’s Art-group?

November 11, 2009 in Celebrating, Developing, Entertaining, Life with Kids is Easy | 3 comments

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!»

painting with children

Our works will tell you what mood we were in while painting :) : Read the rest of this entry »

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Drawing with Children of Preschool Age. An Easel

October 28, 2009 in Developing, Life with Kids is Easy, Tip of the Day | No comments

Tip of the Day

“To learn painting like Rafael I had to study painting like a child half of my life!”

Pablo Picasso

My hubby and I are among the happy parents who did not have to invent where to hide and how to hang up the things in our room for our little child who had just started walking not to reach and break them. Regarding this, Soniya is a very conscious child. The instruments for art (felt-tip pens, pencils, plasticine, etc.) are kept in the places where she can easily take them from. So, it was quite logical that one day when Soniya was 16 mo she tried drawing on our white door. We explained to her that it was not the best thing to do. She got the idea. But for us it was a signal that the little one needs some new space for art :)

When Natalie told me that Arseny (19 mo) had got a new “easel” (“paper finished, we turned to wallpaper – we are drawing with crayons, markers, paints”), I understood that we need a similar one!

drawing with children of pre-school age

 

The space is much larger – an opportunity not to draw only tiny things :)

The space is limited in our room. That’s why the easel which I made for our daughter looks Read the rest of this entry »

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Foreign Languages for Toddlers. A Mother’s Experience

September 22, 2009 in Developing, Life with Kids is Easy | No comments

Below, it is described how our little daughter is “mastering” the English language but the same approach can be applied to teaching any foreign language.

After Soniya had turned one year old, I felt that some diversity should be added into our “lessons” of English. Of course, daily (if possible) reading of books in English was still there (as for me, I believe that it is the most effective way of fostering love for and knowledge of a foreign language in little babies) but I also invented something else. But let’s start from the very beginning…

First, I would like to say a few words on how I am reading books in the foreign language to Sonya. At such an age (16 mo), the child is unlikely to just sit and listen (though Soniya, to my surprise, sometimes listened to English fairy-tales in contrast to the ones in her native language :) ). That is why I suggested her to play with some developing toy while I, sitting nearby, was reading “Robin Hood”, “King Arthur”, “The Beauty and the Beast”, etc. to her (I tried to read books of different levels, starting from 50-100 words up to the level of a native speaker).

?????????? ???? ??? ?????

Before to start reading, I try to “introduce” our daughter into the “English atmosphere”. Together,

Read the rest of this entry »

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Painting with Toddlers: Art-balls

August 30, 2009 in Developing, Life with Kids is Easy | 4 comments

We have recently learnt an interesting technique of painting together with toddlers:

Painting with a 3 Year Old

Here is what Natalie, the author of the blog “The Mother of a Fidget”, has told us:

«First, we put a sheet of white paper, pour 2-3 drops of different paints and then put a small ball into some box. The task of the toddler is to roll the ball at the bottom of the box spreading the paints all over… Here is what our son Alon has come up with:

painting with children

If there is a relief pattern on the ball, the picture will be more interesting. You can prolong the activity and make it more difficult by adding Read the rest of this entry »

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How to Make Drawing Absorbing, or Keeping a Diary together with a One Year Old

August 5, 2009 in Developing, Entertaining, Life with Kids is Easy, Tip of the Day | 2 comments

Tip of the DayOur 1-year-old Soniya loves felt-tip pens – to take them out from the package, to take the caps off and then to try to put them on again, to push the felt pens into the package again. But she is interested in drawing itself only for a minute. And drawing is very useful for the development of image-bearing thinking, aesthetic perception, sense of colour and space…

Once, when we were in our village house waiting together with the daughter until the rain stops, I thought out the following (it was impossible to avoid drawing as I had taken neither toys nor books to the village house from the city and it was not wise to walk under the rain): I started describing our previous day for Soniya drawing the images-illustrtions with the felt-tip pens at the same time. Our daughter was obviously interested. Not only was she listening to me but she was also drawing something over my images, voiced the pictures as if remembering something, told me something in her own language… We were drawing in such a way for 10-15 minutes and even did not notice when the rain stopped.

drawing with a baby

“Do you remember the cock we saw in the morning? Yes, yes, it was going among the grass and flowers. We were near the river. Who lives in the river? The fish.And there was the sun above us…”

On coming back home Read the rest of this entry »

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How to Put the Little One to Bed without a Dummy, Bottle or Mother’s Milk, or Discovering the World around

June 15, 2009 in Developing, Life with Kids is Easy | No comments

Tip of the DayUntil our daughter turned 1 year old, it had not been difficult to put Soniya to bed during the day – each time she slept in her parm outside: she was falling asleep quickly under the influence of the cold air and without a dummy (I also managed to adjust to the circumstances sitting beside the pram with my laptop :) ). May came. It became warm. There was such fragrance in the atmosphere! Everything was attracting, especially, the little one who was discovering the world. What pram?! What sleep?! Everything often finished with exhaustion from walking and impressions and unwillingness to close the eyes and sleep peacefully (even in the moving pram!). So, since then I have had to put our daughter to bed at home in the afternoon (for the first time in our life!)

Our baby-girl refused from the baby’s dummy when she was 7 months old. The baby’s bottle was not attractive for her and I stopped giving her breast milk during the day time since she had turned 10 months old (I left only night feeding). So, how can one put a baby to bed in such circumstances? Of course, there are children who would snuggle on their parents’ sofa when tired and immediately fall asleep. But Soniya is not like that. She will lie half a minute peacefully and then will start fidget, turn and whimper because nothing happens. I have tried reading books to her. She has got a keen ear and all the sounds start irritating her even more when she is tired.

At that point I remembered about our daughter’s interest in Read the rest of this entry »

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How to Teach a Little Child a Foreign Language? A Mother’s Experience

June 2, 2009 in Developing, Life with Kids is Easy | 1 comment

Our friend has been teaching her daughter English (for her English was a second language, so it could also be any other language) almost since her birth. Until the child turned one year old, Vera had been speaking to Bazhena in English, approximately for an hour, – about the  things she spoke to her about in her native language . When her daughter was 12 months old, such monologues became rather difficult because the little one understood the native language already and English seemed not understandable to her – she did not want to listen to it. Moreover, Vera’s English referred more to technical things than to everyday life. So, to tell the daughter about the household (and about what else?!) was a bit problematic. But still, the foreign language was being installed into everyday life. As a result, Bazhena remembered the names of the household things.

At about the same time, Vera played the tape with the “Songs of Mother Goose” for Bazhena from time to time. She also sang these songs to the little one herself during the day. For the songs not to be just a background, our friend dramatized them. For example, they are eating soup and she is singing a song to her daughter about it at the same time showing: spoon, soup. Without any translation into the native language!

how to Teach a Child a Foreign Language

Since she turned 18 months, the girl started Read the rest of this entry »

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