Out of your mouth! Fine motor playMarch 23, 2016
Our little ball of exploration just wants to feed that inquisitive nature but is stuck in the oral stage. It’s frustrating because some parents seem to breeze through this rather quickly, while others are stuck there for a year or more.
Beyond the limitations, all those little pieces really help develop fine motor skills and he loves playing with anything that has lots of ‘bits’. Hence, it’s not stopped us finding favourite ‘fine motor control’ structured activities, so I thought I’d share.
1. Matchsticks. Sensory tubs are great, but in reality eating big handfuls of hard rice or dried cereal just doesn’t fit our needs. Our house isn’t all that suitable for wet play either. Brightly coloured matchsticks are big enough to easily retrieve from the ground / lips, but still fall in a beautiful way and can be threaded through card tubes or searched through.
2. The Crayon Box. More than just a chance to scribble with chunky crayons. By using a small pacifier box to store our crayons we spend as long, if not longer, manipulating the clasp, filling and emptying out. The paper must be fully taped to the table.
3. Sticky Foam Floor Piece Shapes. (catchy title I know!) This is an activity we don’t do too often but totally adore. The floor pieces give us a contained area and strong frame for the sticky back plastic. Small bits of paper, funky foam, tissue paper, string, and fabric scraps endure regular ‘turn and shake’ until everything is stuck so nothing can be eaten later!
4. Playdough. I make my own using this recipe but then we’ll only play with up to 1/4 of the dough at once. Limiting the amount not only makes it easier to manipulate but also to keep track of.
5. lolly Stick Can. Big chunky threading as well as the obligatory fill and dump are served quite well by this. The can lid has two slits and one circle hole that’s a bit easier to use.
Those are our top 5.
Did you get stuck at the oral stage? What activities did your youngsters enjoy?
A new palletMarch 18, 2016
“How did Jesus actually die?” asked a small voice from the group of children who had been quizzing me on the old building that surrounded us. I was at the edge of the chancel in a church that betrayed a hotchpotch of generational changes, including the small stations of the cross that this class had come to examine. I looked at the child in question, this was no time for the simple answer, it was time for a story.
“He probably suffocated” I started, knowing that it was the unexpected answer, the accurate answer. “Crucifixion is like that. They would take a wooden beam and place it in the ground, the second wooden beam is the one across the shoulders” I slowly raised one arm then the next. “Arms would have been tied in place and then long thick nails would have been pushed against your wrists, there’s a bone there, they won’t rip like your hands might” Out of the corner of my eye I could see the other groups had stopped to watch, I dropped my arms to swing the hammer, breathed in a huge breath to show the effort of breathing – I was a storyteller and I was painting a masterpiece. By the end of the description the building was quiet, the children downcast, the air thick. How I delighted in then dusting the miracle of Easter… that this wasn’t the end of the story. In a hushed voice I told how we believe this suffering was a battle, and though Jesus died he won the war, he rose again.
The spell broken, the room shook off the trance and returned to it’s activity. I loved my job, I loved being paid to tell these stories, to make the dry words alive, to dream ways of bringing the intangible miracle of a personal relationship with the divine to the youngsters I met. When the position ended I couldn’t imagine not continuing to work in the same field. Countless interviews and some ugly experiences later, with a mission trip under my belt and a wedding ring on my finger it was still unbearable to think I’d never one day return to that place.Could God really leave me like a painter with no canvass?
I remember boldly declaring at the age of 10 that I’d one day write material for Sunday School. I thought I’d probably become a teacher back then, but this declaration was more prophetic than I would have imagined. As a children’s worker I had dipped in my toes composing and editing material, but now so far from that church I believed I was called to serve, so far from the middle England my heart broke for, I was finally fulfilling those words. This time I wouldn’t be the storyteller in the room, for my words were mangled by translation before they reached the ears of the children I encountered. But my artistic nature ended up bursting out in different ways. I learnt to draw in vectors, to sculpt lines into clothing and expressions, to lay down one pallet of intonation and emphasis for another of curve and contour. I continued to write, this time for the inspiration of others, and let my creative imagination pour into games and crafts. It wasn’t the same, it’s not the same.
We always long for the same.
We long for the favourite artists brush, the almost completed painting, the familiar, for the blank canvass is scary. Writing material isn’t being in the room with the faces that hang on your every word, there is no watching the spark ignite in the faceless inspiration. Where I am is serving a bigger picture than I could every have done back then, it’s a truth I grasp tightly. Another comforter I hug into is that only by having the experience of standing where I did then can I serve as I am now. Recreating our memories paintings is not what God has called us to. I firmly believe God equipped us with skills for a purpose, and it’s our aim to find those places we can use the skills to glorify him. God did not promise to fulfil every desire of our hearts, he promised to fill our lonely spaces with his presence, to push us further along the pathway and match our footsteps along the way.
In the hearts of all who are skillful I have put skill, that they may make all that I have commanded you (exodus 31:6)
Linking up with Velvet Ashes where the theme this week is “Art”
All for a bunch of DaffodilsMarch 12, 2016
I saw them selling daffodils, huddled behind a bucket of posies, out in the gathering dusk on the Saturday evening. The yellow heads bobbed their strangely distinctive shapes, flooding my memory with images of Mothering Sunday. “Buy me some daffodils” I murmured, buy me some daffodils for tomorrow is mothers day. It wasn’t, I was a week early, it didn’t matter, nobody celebrates it here anyway. It was my right of passage though, it was my honour to be honoured, it was something I’d delighted in as a child, squirmed over as a teen, endured as a childless adult. I stopped the party and had them buy me daffodils.
Part of the joys of living in a different country is getting to share in their celebrations, but part of the sorrow is sometimes needing to let go of your own. We have a wonderful opportunity as parents to chose which celebrations we will encourage our child to join in with, which celebrations our foreign status will allow us to downplay and which we will ‘import’ with us. This chance to really asses the events you have always taken as given is a great eye opener.
For the first few years I imported the delight of bonfire night. I told the story of a failed explosion and watched the murky autumn air fill with vivid colour. It was a physical marker of autumn for me that I had adored, but as time passes I’m less eager to continue. As time passes the defence for keeping a tradition can easily erode. Easter and Christmas traditions stand firmer in my head, but Mothering Sunday simply wasn’t on the radar until recently. Locally March 8th (International Women’s day) is like valentines and mothers day rolled into one. This year the real date for mothering Sunday was only 2 days different, I foresee this celebration being one I need to let go.
If I’m totally honest with myself part of me is glad. While the celebration is a great thing it’s not without it’s bitterness. I’ve stood amongst the barren and bereaved, I’ve held the hands of those who never found a partner and seen the uncomfortable hesitation on faces that don’t know if they should be giving flowers. I’ve seen the faces of youngsters vie over their better gifts and mothers boast over receiving them. Yes it’s their honour, yes it’s their pride, but pride goes both ways. If I’m totally honest with myself I’d prefer tulips or roses but I suppose that’s besides the point!