I have noticed this phenomenon of parents doing things for their children. Now, don't get me wrong, I have been guilty of wrestling my kids into socks or tying shoelaces as we rush out the door in the morning because it is so much faster when I do it myself. That being said, Overachievers, if you are going to do your preschooler's or kindergartner's project without any input from your child, at least make it look like a kid did it and not like Pinterest sneezed. On Friday mornings I take my two year old son to a park district class consisting of music, a craft, and a puppet. The crafts are mind numbingly simple because, hello they are being completed by one and two year olds. Except when they're being completed by overzealous moms. "Give me the sticker, Sally, let Mommy put it in the right place for you." Last week's craft was a door hanger foam monkey. Each child was given a foam monkey and several foam stickers including eyes and flowers with which to decorate his or her monkey. The moms quickly swiped the projects from the greedy little hands of the toddlers and began carefully placing the eyes evenly and putting the flower stickers in the monkey's hair. The teacher walked around and gave her approval. When she reached Elliott's monkey she said, "Oh!". You see, my contribution to the project consisted of taking the backing off of the stickers and handing them to Elliott. although I have to say he did a pretty good job; I don't think I could have done better myself. This is Elliott's monkey project:
I especially like the eye on the top of his head. Priceless. If it looks like a two year old did it that's because a two year old DID in fact DO it. Maybe it won't win an award for symetry but Elliott got a kick out of putting stickers all over the monkey, which was the point.
Now, just like everyone else, I am on Pinterest. In fact I have followers on Pinterest which is hilarious because I have never pinned anything artsy, except blog posts. By the way if you want to follow something, you should follow this blog. Just sayin. Have you ever seen those posts showing Pinterest projects done by the ghost of June Cleaver pictured next to the same project completed by an ordinary mom without an art degree and infinite patience? Well, look up "family tree crafts for kids" on Pinterest. The one I created with Aiden looks just like those, huh? At least ours is environmentally friendly and doubles as an earth day/recycled materials project.
Nailed It!
Hey, we incorporated writing, hole punching, cutting and taping. We also kept our 7 Up box out of a landfill. Your welcome.
To be clear, I am not knocking Pinterest. On the contrary, I find a lot of great ideas for art projects to do with my kids, birthday party themes, and baking ideas. The only issue is our results don't look exactly like the pins. My five year old loves Halloween. It is actually kind of an obsession. He begins preparing for it, planning his costume, and asking to put up Halloween decorations by early August, which either means Halloween is his favorite holiday or he is preparing for a career as a department store manager. Either way, we always make sure to make some spooktacular crafts like this spider:
Nailed It!
I guess the moral of the story is that Pinterest is really great for getting ideas, but not so good when trying to convince yourself that you have this whole June Cleaver thing down. I also have a theory about some of the crafts on Pinterest:
The two year old didn't do it.
So stay calm and art project on.
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