One of the many activities that I did last week was help miss J create a box for the Valentines she would receive at school. Her school even turned it into a contest this year to encourage the creativity. I guess you could say that she was on the same wave length as me because when I asked her what she wanted it to look like she chose a bee theme. She had no idea that I was doing a bee themed gift for my friends because I hadn’t even started on it yet. Crazy, right? She’s my daughter for sure.
I promised myself a long time ago that I would let my children do their own thing when it came to creating. Even if that meant that other children’s projects might look better because mom and dad helped them more (if you know what I mean). I asked her to design her box by drawing what she wanted it to look like first. Then I wrote down notes about the specifics she wanted. This was all her doing. I did buy the box for her and found some of the supplies just because their wasn’t time to take her out shopping for them. But I stuck to her desires. I found some yellow honeycomb paper to cover the box and we found the other scrapbook paper and sticker letters in my stash to use.
She drew the bees and cut them out. I did cut out the pieces of paper for the box, but she had to glue them on herself. She also drew and cut out everything else and put the stickers on where she wanted them. She ended up not wanting to put everything on she had originally drawn, but she was happy with it. I was so proud of her and she was proud of herself. She didn’t win the competition, but it was a learning opportunity to teach her about doing her best and being true to herself in her designs and in life. I’m blessed to have her and her little sis to share in special holidays with.
-Jess
That’s awesome Jess! I love seeing kids creativity come to life. J (my son) sometimes draws up designs and then asks his dad to help him make whatever it is (because it often involves power tools – so hubs helps him actually DO the work on the power tools – no way are we letting a 6 year old loose on them by himself!). I’d love to know who does the honeycomb paper – I’m looking for some for later in the year.
Sheree x0x