Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Art Table Woes

The art table is one of my kids' favorite parts of our home.  It sits in the corner of the kitchen and is quite literally used every hour of every day.  The drawers hold stamps, playdough and a broom and dustpan.  The metal basket holds the kids' journals, paper, notebooks, stencils, scissors and glue sticks.  There is a jar of crayons and a jar of colored pencils on the table, and a bulletin board to display their work.  Oh yeah- and the scraps, pencils, crayons and stickers on the floor of course.  That's a given.

Our art center has worked great ever since Violet graduated from "rogue artist" into an "I will create without coloring on your walls" artist about a year ago.  There is only one problem- 18 lbs and 29 inches of cute destruction.  Crayons in the mouth, ripped pages, making off with the scissors...it's BEATRICE MAE.

Sooo...we need a new solution.  Art supplies higher?  Somehow teach M and V to actually put the supplies away when they are done with them?  Hide the table in M's room?  I really don't love the idea of it leaving the highly-supervised kitchen area.

Any ideas?  I'm thinking this might just require a trip to Ikea :)  Awww...shucks.


In Lieu of Preschool For the Kids Friday


2 comments:

  1. Thankfully my youngest is past this stage now but I know it well. I set up a special 'arts and crafts' box for my bub, it contained old markers with lids to come off and on, scraps of paper to tear, fake playdough scissors so she thought she had real scissors, thick chunky crayons to draw with, and an empty glue stick with lid (it has to be empty because otherwise she would eat it)and lots of container with pom poms etc. I hope this helps.

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  2. If you want them to learn how to care for and put items away keep the art area where it is. If they don't have access to the materials, they won't learn if they are kept where they can't even reach them. You may want to start with less materials for them to access at first, then once they get the hang of it add a little more...too much can become and overwhelming mess ;)

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