Sunday, March 27, 2011

Cute Spring Project

When I first left my job of 17 years as a childcare activities director, people used to ask me all the time "Do you miss working with kids?"

For the first 2 years my answer was a resounding "Nope".

I was so burnt out by that time and had worked at the same place with some people who weren't the easiest to work with so when I left I walked out the door and never looked back.

It has only been in the last year or so that I find myself missing the kids.  Not enough to make me go back to that profession, but enough for me to think longingly about some of the things I used to do with them.

I miss reading stories to them. I love children's books.  I used to collect them. I have boxes and boxes of children's books sitting in storage that I will probably one day find the courage to donate somewhere.

I miss doing art with them. As the activities director it was my job to plan and execute all of the art activities.  We did art every day with about 50-60 kids so that's a lot of art projects!

I used to love sitting with a group of kids at the art table, coloring and gluing and chatting about their day.  Even kids that won't normally open up to you will start talking if their hands are engaged in something else and they don't have to look right at you when they are speaking.  It is one of my fondest memories of my time working there.

We did a pretty good mix of art and crafts.  While I felt it was important for them to be able to express their creativity with no rules or boundaries, I also found they loved to make things that resembled something(these were 5 and 6 year olds).  Plus their parents really loved some of the seasonal crafts that we made and I had to make them happy too. Easter was one of my favorite crafting seasons.

I love creating things myself (as you can see from my etsy shop), but I still scour the internet for children's crafts too.  I don't know why.  I don't have any kids to make them with, but I just love seeing what's out there.

Today I was surfing the crafting websites and I came across this:


How cute is this?  This is exactly the sort of thing I would have made with my kids, as a group project which we would have proudly displayed on the door to the daycare center when it was finished.  
So cute!

I found it here, along with step by step instructions on how to make it.


Anyone have a kid I can borrow so I can make this?    :)



If you do decide to make it, send me a pic so I can live vicariously through you.

5 comments:

Number 6 and no more counting! said...

Really cute!

lea
xo

frogglet said...

Cute! I can't wait to be able to do little crafts with Chloe. maybe you could find a way to volunteer with kids once in a while. I know, in what spare time :) Life is too busy sometimes. Take Care, Cora

Middle-Aged Moi said...

You can borrow all SIX of mine! G'head. :-)

Pam and Jeff said...

Why not make it yourself? It is too cute!!!! Spring perfect!!! I work in a Sunday school class every other month. IT is so fun just to color. IT is so nice. IT takes you back to when things were simple.

Jenna said...

If we lived closer I would let you borrow my son anytime. He can be a handful though... He is so much fun at the same time.
I just wanted to give you some ass-vice, I don't want to offend you, you know that I really care about you and we have talked about this before. Have you thought anymore about adopting foster children? I know we have talked about my friend who was infertile and had to have a hysterectomy also, she adopted 5 kids. Not only does she love having the children but fostering is a good source of income. It really helps there family to have the extra money. I do know that you don't adopt for the money, you adopt because you want to add to your family... I am sorry if this is offensive, I really don't meant it to be, I just think fostering to adopt might be something for you and joe to look into.