Creating Art Space For Children
Author: utbt15 Aug 2011
Part 7 of many.
Tharini, this is for you. What now seems like ages ago, I promised you that I will do a post on setting up an art space for children. Months passed and you have already created an art space for the boys….Better late than never and never to break promises….so here it goes.
Let us begin with the basic premises:
- It is the process, not the product.
- You are aware of your child’s age, capabilities and interests.
Age: Which means that your very young child will not have a sense of boundary. Provide her with a big canvas. Do not give her a 8 X 11 and expect her to create within it.
Interest: Some children do not like wet paint. It does not make them any less of an artist.
In my opinion for children age 2yrs – 6yrs, the popular art activities are play dough, cutting, pasting, crayons, wet paint, shaving cream, stamping. I have two or three variations of these in my art shelf and keep rotating them. A simple change paves way for new creative energy. Some typical things I rotate are
Playdough
Week1 – Play dough + roller and cookie cutter
Week2 – Play dough + moulds
Week3 – Playdough + extruder
Wet paint variations
Week1 – finger painting
Week2 – brushes
Week3 – spin art
Week4 – liquid water color
Regarding colors, there are philosophies about what we must give children. Montessori believes in starting with one color at a time, because the children must enjoy the process – fluidity of paint, hand eye coordination, brush control and learn their boundaries. Giving them too many colors distracts them from the process. The second step would be to give them the primary colors ONLY and let them create the secondary colors. Waldorf believes in chunky crayons in all colors and emphasizes pastels in their environment. So pick something practical that would work for you.
I knocked off the doors of a dining nook, which gave me two decent sized shelves. To organize, I picked up four file trays from IKEA. Right next to the shelves I placed our IKEA easel. Voila, our art space. Now some pictures for you.
Dining nook and file trays
Dining nook loaded with file trays
 Dot colors in primary colors, regular markers, glitter markers, pencil, sharpner, flower paper puncher, eraser, scissors, tape |
 My dear green tub! |
 Crayons |
 Pencils |
 Play-doh |
 Stamps |
One side printed paper, some collage material I find interesting, paper grocer bags cut and flattened, construction paper are the other supplies I have in the trays.
Good luck with your art space peeps!
Q Is For Questions
Author: utbt5 Aug 2011
Questions are good to have. Without questions we become stagnant, don’t we?
The major questions that are eating us inside out are:
Chula: Amma, if I get up at 3.00AM, do you think I will get ready in time for my bus?
Mieja: Why must I read? What is the big deal amma, because I don’t even like it.
Me: What next?
R: Your amma cooks three times a day, she says that her gas cylinder gets over in 30 – 35 days. ‘U’ says hers gets over in approximately 45 days. Our cylinder has been going strong for 62 days now. Why? Are you cooking enough?
PS: Our first cylinder got over yesterday, much to some one’s relief! At least one question got answered.
One, Two And A Seven
Author: utbt23 Jul 2011
One Friday evening,
Two kids playing,
One kid trying to eat the other kid,
One kid running out giggling, banging the door shut,
One door lock released inadvertently,
One kid trapped inside the bedroom with the keys inside,
Two parents puzzled,
One parent giving instructions to the kid to open the lock from the inside,
One parent teaches the kid to slip the key under the door,
Two parents finding out that the key is not of any use,
One lock stuck,
One trapped kid amazingly calm and collected,
One kid giving running commentary from outside,
One parent slips a book under the door,
One parent puts the other kid down,
One kid goes to sleep by herself,
One trapped kid forgetting the situation and lost in the book,
One parent calling every one sundry,
One parent googling how to break lock,
One carpenter promising to come by 10.00AM the next day morning,
One parent asking carpenter to get lost,
Two plumbers arrive,
One hour passes by,
Two more plumbers arrive,
One hopelessly broken key,
One family friend runs outside the community and manages to find two carpenters,
Seven fully grown men breaking the door around the lock,
One kid peacefully sleeping inside,
One kid peacefully sleeping outside.
One house owner needs to be informed about the door.
Weekend has started with a bang, literally.
PS: 9.00PM – 10.00PM, there is so much noise and not one neighbor peeped outside to see what was going on!
I Is (not)For iPad
Author: utbt19 Jul 2011
Disclaimer
(1)It is not just iPad, but in general I am against any technology for the 0-9 age group.
(2)I am talking strictly for the 0-9 age group.
Ever since I read this, something has been brewing in my head and now I am fully convinced that technology is sensory deprivation for the 0-9 age group children.
My reasons.
(1)Young children need a warm adult human being to learn.
In 1960’s Harry Harlow, in order to study the human emotion of love, conducted a series of experiments with baby monkeys. He isolated many baby monkeys from their mother. Each of these baby monkeys were placed in a cage. The cage contained a metal mesh, roughly shaped like a mama monkey, with a milk bottle attached to it. And a similar metal mesh wrapped in soft cotton, made plush, but with no nourishment of any sort. After many days of observation, Harlow concluded that all baby monkeys clearly preferred the cloth mother to the wire mother. The baby monkey would stay with the cloth mother running quickly to the wire mother to take a quick sip of milk and run back to the cloth mother. When the cloth monkey was removed from the cage, the baby monkeys became insecure and displayed panic and aggression(screaming, crying etc), over extended period of time some monkeys even died.
This kind of an experiment cannot be conducted on real human beings and the monkeys being very close to us in terms of evolution, this is proof enough for me. Children need a warm, living, talking human being to carry, touch, attend to the needs of the child, use voice with different modulations, exhibit a myriad of emotions, have unprogrammed response in order to nurture the child.
Revolutionizing the way how young children learn, by replacing the human interaction, even if it is only a part, with technology is not my cup of tea.
(2)The first thing that forms in the womb is the brain. Then the human body develops from the center to the extremities. That is growth is from the spinal cord/brain region to the limbs and finally to the digits. When a child is born she does not know that she has hands, legs, fingers and toes. Then over the first three years the child slowly discovers, understands and starts using her extremities.
The brain forming first is by no means an indication that the brain is fully developed at the time of birth. The brain at the time of birth is more like a perfectly planned city without ANY roads. How can one live in this city if there is no way to get from point A to point B? The roads are the neural networks. We need them to transmit electrical signals, to convey information, to access information, to connect something that we learnt long back in order to address the current problem at hand.
As the child grows so does her experience. The child discovers she has hands. This is an experience. She writes this in to her brain and forms certain neural networks. The child discovers that her hands have some use, say pick up things. This is an experience. The already formed neural network is expanded or rewritten based on this new information. In a capsule, the brain is shaped and molded by the number of varied experiences a child has.
Using tech gizmo to learn her ABC or play with also an experience. But it is a one track experience, touch the screen, the next letter will be played, push this button the light will blink, pull the cord the siren will sound etc. There is no variation in the experience and there is neither scope for expansion of the network that is already formed nor any kind of rewriting of neural network that happens. Such learning is detrimental to the growing brain.
In very simple words, ‘THE MORE YOUR CHILD MOVES, THE MORE SHE LEARNS’. The way to a child’s brain is through unstructured gross motor movement and some simple fine motor movement.
(3)A machine is one size fits all and does not cater to children with difficulties perceiving certain patterns. Even a mild pattern perception problem, say for example your child is left handed instead of right handed, is not accounted for in many gizmos.
Having worked in a conventional school with traditional teaching methods, for a few months, I have seen first hand how a left hand child perceives the written letter differently. First of all we are talking about four year old children who do not get the very concept that letter is a symbolical representation of sound. Secondly we do not wait for the child’s hand muscles to develop, we expect them to write what is shown to them. Problems if any are addressed by repetition. This learning by rote rather than understanding can only go so far.
Where as children who are allowed to experience the symbol through body movements do much better. It is kind of an early intervention program, that acts on the weaker areas of the brain and strengthens it.
(4)The tech toys do not come cheap. Depending on the level of sophistication they leave a significant dent in your purse. As a generalization most of us have two children in a family. Do you buy two tech toys which means shelling out double the amount of money or do you buy one and expect the children to share?
If one truly believes that she is buying a tech toy to her child because she wants her child to learn, then by stipulating an usage time she insinuates that learning happens only during a specific time.
Okay the sharing business aside, parents expect children to sit at a place and play/learn with the gizmo without damaging the gizmo. The child cannot open the gizmo, shake it, see what makes all this sound and movement to happen. Very fair expectation from the parent considering the price of the gizmo. You are teaching this child to merely enjoy the outcome, not to bother about how the whole shebang happens. Would you rather give your child a fish a day or teach your child to fish?
Young children need to see cause and effect and must also see that a varied cause makes a different effect. When you pour dry sand, this is how it falls. When you pour wet sand this is what happens. When you pour dry sand through a funnel, how does it fall? These are the simple and the most enriching experiences young children need.
(5)I am certainly worried about the radiation levels children are exposed to. Staring at a screen is very unnatural for the eyes. Again the brain develops in accordance to the signals it receives and a child exposed to TV/Kindle/iPad/iPhone grows up with a brain that is wired to see close by objects, looses interest in things that do not come with a sound and dance effect.
(6)I recently attended a lecture by Roland Steinemann and what he said was very interesting to me. While discussing what is the motivation of a child to learn, to go to school, he said that the till age 5 the main motivation for a child to learn is is the innate skill of every human being to imitate. Then till age 9/10 children learn because they love the teacher. After 10 is the stage where they learn for satisfying their curiosity.
Going by this logic, tech toys with programmed responses, which just throw information in your face, are much suitable for the 10+ age group.
(7)I have also heard the argument that this is the age of tech and if children are not introduced early on, they will loose out. Going by this argument Zuckerberg must have grown up with social networking and Larry Page must have grown up with search engines. All a child needs is unlimited imagination, curiosity to know and analyze things, determination and will to follow through.
For your further reading pleasure
Last Child In The Woods by Richard Louv
Smart Play Smart Toys by Stevanne Auerbach
Met Him…Finally!
Author: utbt11 Jul 2011
She had been wanting to see him for a long time now. She knew that she cannot go to his home and meet him. No, that would take too long. Way too long. And a lot of money. She even made a trip to San Francisco to see if he was put up there. But no such luck. She had quietly resigned to the fact that the meeting may never happen, unless he visits her. Fat chance of that happening, for he has no inkling that she even exists!
And it happened! Out of the blue that too. He was in her city and she stumbled on the news by chance. Her husband was out the whole weekend, working, and she decided that this was THE time. She went, she met and was not disappointed.
“Amma, why did you bring us here to see the Chinaman? Why do we come to museums at all, instead of doing something else, like, may be go to the pool?” asked the younger child. “Because it is like a looking through a small window and see how things were thousands of years back. Some times we learn things that can be useful even today. Something we find something that is a clue to a mystery” she said.
“Amma, what did you learn from the terra-cotta warrior?” asked the older child. “That people have been living for thousands of years. Many of them did many wonderful things and then died. Some are remembered, some are not. But life goes on.” she said.
“So?!!! Was it worth it?” asked the husband. “See, it is not just one or two statues that gives me the kicks. The soldiers are symbolic representation of a way of life 2200 years back. Once I was there I felt a movie reel unwind in my mind. Yes, it was worth it.” she said.
Truly Original Thoughts
Author: utbt8 Jul 2011
Mieja: “Amma just get me a Barbie and a carrot. No, no, many, many carrots. Okay?”
Background information.
Amma, at some point of time: Carrots are good for you. They make you healthy and intelligent.
Amma, at all points of time: Barbies tell little girls that ONLY beauty is important.
A frustrated Amma, at some point of time: Playing with Barbies will make you stupid.
For more truly original thoughts visit here.
B Is For Bandh
Author: utbt6 Jul 2011
Living in India got to experience bandh right?! So highlights of the bandh.
Day 1:
* Parents caught unawares. Kids thoroughly kicked more because of the uncertainty than the actual holiday.
* All the critters climbing up and down all 11 floors, yelling and screaming. With the mixed age group comes different climbing speeds. So at a point there were multiple groups going up and down and extra screaming when opposite forces met. All the while we parents pretended that these children do not belong to us.
* After some time the kids got tired and decided they will only go down the stairs and come up using elevator. So they went to 11th floor, climbed down to 10, went up in elevator to 11, climbed down to 9, went up in elevator to 11 and climbed down to 8 etc. This master plan was (unfortunately) devised by Chula. The adults who managed to shrug off the inertia to get to work, were stuck in their respective floors because the elevators were jammed by the kids.
* All swimming pools and play grounds were full. So were the stair cases, elevators, parking lots, cricket pitch, basket ball courts, tennis courts and roller skating area. Which made me suspect that all kids in the city some how managed to come in to this community.
* On the way to the pediatrician saw multiple TV channels, vans with dish on top, reporters with mike, camera men…the whole nine yards, reporting in front of Hi-Tech city. Probably telling the world that the bandh has not affected this part of the city.
* Two children came home for play date and got prolonged to snack date, dinner date, story telling date, art work date, a mini fight, some tears, making up, extra love and begging their respective parents for extra play time.
* Two tired children who went extra early to sleep. One tired mom who decided to check out the idiot box. Chanced upon this Tamil soap where a three year old is the reincarnation of her grandma(the child’s mother’s MIL). Each is terrible standalone can you imagine this dreaded combination?!! Seriously, how do people come up with such original stuff?
Day 2:
* Better prepared parents. Many play dates were planned. So stair cases are quite, elevators are free. But there is mucho screaming and giggling sound from every apartment window. Again there seems to be at least 25 kids in every apartment and yet the average is only two children/apartment. See…. the numbers don’t add up.
* My free day today, the children are out of the house till PM. I plan to check out this. So wanted to lay my hands on this book post Harini’s review. I threatened the children that they better behave and not fight and N.O.T come back home( there was much emphasis on the last part) and cut my me-time short.
Ciao good people, got to go enjoy the rest of my bandh.
BOOK REVIEW: The Mystery Of Blue
Author: utbt5 Jul 2011
The Mystery Of Blue, By Muriel Kakani, Art By Boski Jain, Publishers: Tulika Books, Ages: 6 – 9, Picture courtesy: tulikabooks.com. Review written for Saffron Tree.
Have you read Sivakamiyin Sabatham by Kalki? If not and if you can read Tamil, you can read the whole novel here. Sivakamiyin Sabatham is a historical fiction by Kalki, written in 1944, for over a period of 12 years, in four parts and 209 chapters. It truly is a master piece and one of the main reasons I want my kids to learn how to read Tamil, is for them to read Kalki’s work in its original form. No, this is not a review of Sivakamiyin Sabatham. But there is a point behind this digression.
The one line story is, ‘The Pallava prince avenges the Chalukya king who kidnapped his love, the dancer Sivakami.’ How did the Chalukya king manage to kidnap Sivakami, the Pallava prince’s lover, in the middle of a siege with the whole Pallava army watching? The answer to this is, Sivakami’s father – a gifted sculptor sneaks out of the Kanchi fort, with his daughter and willingly takes refuge with the Chalukya king because he is tricked in to believing that the Chalukya kings knows the secret of the permanent natural dyes used to create the Ajantha paintings! So great is the imaginary character’s desire to find out how the natural dyes were created in the 2nd century BC, that he walked out on his benefactor, in to enemy camp and thus offsetting a series of events in Kalki’s imagination!
The novel leaves the reader wondering, how did so many colors exist in India? How were they created? How were the primary colors extracted? Were the vegetable dyes treated specially for them to last through the centuries? If the dye pigments were extracted from the flora unique to a specific region, how were the same primary colors extracted through out the country? Was the knowledge about the dyes and the extraction process freely shared or was it kept under lock and key?
These are the questions explored in Muriel Kakani’s, The Mystery Of Blue. The story is narrated by little Kunku from the village of Ilkal. Kunku’s father and mother are dyers and weavers like the thousand other people in their village. As Kunku describes how her mother makes different colors from one pigment, one cannot help but wonder the scientific process behind dye making! Also one is filled with awe how the people in old times lived with a deep understanding of nature and the numerous experiments they had to go through to isolate the pigments. Kunku’s world is filled with orange, red, maroon, purple and pink. One day, Kunku, inspired by the blue shade on her pet pigeon Chandrakali’s neck embarks on the journey of making blue. See how nicely the author touches on the possibility that the artisans were influenced by the colors they see in nature?! How Kunku and Chandrakali manage to make blue is the rest of the story.
The illustrations are rich and captures the essence of the story. As the story proceeds the warm earthen tones give way to the cool blue, stately indigo, royal purple and soothes the eye. The block print patterns are gorgeous.
We have owned this book for two weeks, but I have read it as a bed time story many many times. The children are enjoying the beautiful illustrations and are learning how the ancient Indians worked scientifically and in unison with nature. I am not complaining.
Before I Forget…
Author: utbt28 Jun 2011
Sunday afternoon.
The children are playing in their room and I am watching them play.
They are pretending that they are selling mangoes:
Mieja: Amma, would you like to buy some magical mangoes from me?
Me: Ummm… that depends on the price. How much does your mangoes cost?
Mieja: Oh, don’t worry about that amma, the mangoes are free. Would you like some?
Namma than free-a koduthal phenoyl kooda kudipome (We belong to respectable family that will drink even phenol, a cleaning liquid, if it is free), so my eyes light up!
Me: Free? Sure, I will have 2 kgs.
Meija: Here amma.
She hands over the mangoes and says,
Mieja: Amma, but these are just the mangoes. The magic is separate. You have to pay me to sprinkle the magic on the mangoes. That is not free.
I am stumped! I am upset that I signed up for this deal without reading the fine print.
Me: You never told me this! I thought that I was buying magical mangoes. I don’t want your magic. I will just make do with my free mangoes.
Chula, neatly cuts in,
Chula: Amma, I understand why you are upset. But the magic makes sure that you don’t have to keep buying more and more mangoes. Once you eat a mango, another one will appear magically. Don’t you think it is worth it? Isn’t is a great deal?
And I did buy the magic, with many possible career choice for the girls running through my mind, with a sheepish expression, with my pretend money.
T Is For Transition IV
Author: utbt24 Jun 2011
The thing about settling down to a life in India is that, no matter how much one is prepared, there is always a hidden factor that throws your loop out of sync. For example, the community we live in, is well serviced and plumbers come to your door step in minutes etc. But that does not mean that your bathroom leak will be fixed ASAP. (Read in IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE style)
If your bathroom has a leak,
The plumber will most probably say that it is because of the water heater.
If you call the water heater repair technician,
He will respond in about 24 hours.
If the water heater technician inspects the unit,
He would most probably be the person who changes ONLY the coils and points you to another person.
If after 10 phone calls you get the other person,
He would say that he cannot do anything till he speaks to the first technician who came ti inspect the unit.
If you make a date for the two,
The both will agree that a replacement unit needs to be ordered.
If you ask them to do it,
They will do it and say that the response time is 7 – 10 business days.
If you try calling them in between to find out the status,
They will not pick up the phone.
Mean while water is turned off in your bathrooms. Currently we have one bathroom in which the only the toilet works, one bathroom in which only the sink works and one bathroom in which only shower/heater works. All this gets to you at certain point of time and you go immerse yourself in Bikanervala chaat.
Three words – Bikanervala – chaat – yuuuuuum. Thanks A-kay for mentioning it. We were en-route to QMart @ Banjara Hills and I saw Bikanervala, decided to scratch Qmart and indulge our palate. Of course the fact that we were completely lost and were rather hopeless about finding QMart was a big factor in the sudden change of plans. The ground floor is fast food style. You order, pay, self serve. Seating management is streamlined by staff. Some one takes your name and then calls you in about 15 or so minutes, this on a sunday night, peak crowd. If you don’t want to wait, they also have a sit down restaurant upstairs. Of course pricing is up-marked. I did my hallmark test – Bhelpoori, pani poori and ragada, order and assess. The result was out in flying colors. The kids enjoyed the bhelpoori and there wasn’t much left for me. Mieja approved the kesar pista kulfi. The rad thing we did is to give the kids filtered water from the restaurant instead of ordering bottled water. I mentioned to R in passing that the next thing for me to do is to order bhelpoori from street vendor. He thinks it is a joke.
Right next door to Bikanervala is Karachi Bakery. Chula(yeah, she is such a sport*) and I dived in to the traffic at Road#1, jumped over the divider to go to Karachi biscuits. I think that says it all 
But for the Rs.25 entrance fee and Rs.20 parking fee, I can totally see myself living in Shilparambam. I have my eye on some of the craft classes they offer. I did mention to R that I am going to take a block printing class and make curtains for the house, the way I want it. Again, he thinks it is a joke. I found some awesome Pathachitra artists, Madhubani artist, Kondapalli dolls and Channapatna toys. The Madhubani artist was super thrilled that I knew the name of the art form and offered me a seat to sit and watch him do the work. He forbid me from taking video/pictures though. I was doing a mini interview of sorts with him. Also found in Shilparambam this cool easy chair at a wood working shop. And some clay pots. And some trinkets. And kurtis. And shawls. And bags. And….
One thing I was sure I would miss from US is Amazon. Apparently not. I am now in Flipkart heaven. Excellent customer service, hassle free ordering and good prices. They have something called cash on delivery(COD) and I am taking full advantage of it. I have already exhausted my self imposed cash limit for book ordering for this month and waiting for July to use up my next month’s quota.
The only good thing that can come out of the situation where your child comes home with a palm sized and growing, red, hard, painful, itchy swelling on her hip is that you get to experience first hand the working styles of pediatricians. We went to couple and liked the later. So that has been sorted out. Phew!
*On the subject of crossing roads, while visiting clinics, we had to cross a busy intersection. Mieja was very scared and after the experience she told me, ‘Amma, if an auto hits me, I could die. Did you even think about that?’. See why I called Chula a sport?!
Proud Member of Saffron Tree
Recent Comments