A serious note to my Fun and Nonsense. . .

 A serious note to my Fun and Nonsense.  These creatures were inspired by Carla Sonheim .  I do these when my mojo is on a tea break or has gone off for a jaunty weekend.

 I love the sillyness of them and as usual they have their own little story.  I talk to my drawings (it stops me going insane - yes I hear you saying, "She's barking"). I do it all the time. It all started when I began working at school with 5year olds.

Here is the serious bit. The first year I had a group of  6 children that could dive into a picture and travel to the Moon and stars and be back in time for tea. We had the most amazing adventures. I used to leap out of bed in the morning excited to go to work.

Then came the following years...oh boy. I thought the second lot was a blip, then came the third and now the fourth. No, my 5years olds had and have no imagination, not one drop. Most of them don't like colouring or painting and worst of all, most don't want stories read to them. They want TV and console games. QUICK FIX entertainment. Which is wonderful for just that, a quick fix, not their sole entertainment.

I could get on my soap box about TV being the babysitter and treating children like precious Little Princes and Princess and don't even get me started on table manners, manner in general etc.

Anyway my message is, if you have children around you. Talk to them, vocabulary is very important, play board games with them, they learn alot of social skills, sharing, taking turns, counting, losing. I make my kids play Rummikub - it's a difficult game for 5year olds, I change some of the rules to make it easy. In no time at all they get it and can play with older children and adults. They love it.   Make stories up about their drawings or yours or even cracks in the pavement....(looks like an elephant has walked along here).  Go for walks, bike rides. All this develops, language skills, social skills and imagination that will help them be interesting and happy adults.

For now, I'm that horrid evil classroom assistant, that has 5 year olds enduring mega amounts of colouring and silly stories. My plan is working I'm cracking some of them....mooowahahahahahahaa.

That's my Fun and Nonsense for today... Catherine xx

 

ps.  there is resistance...last year I had one Mum that came to me and told me to stop telling the children that Fairies exist. Father Christmas was OK.

My answer to that was:

Fairies, happy creatures and ordered sillyness RULES in MY CLASSROOM!

So there... :P