Toddler Talk Thursdays!! April 26, 2012

Happy Thursday everyone! Today wasn't as warm out as yesterday was, but since its my only day off in a while I figured Alan and I would still take our little walk over to my parent's house. We did and though it looked like it wanted to storm on us the whole time, we had a really good time! This time on our walk, we saw a rollie pollie on the sidewalk. I told Alan to scare it so that it would roll up, and he bent down close to it and yelled as loud as he could lol! :D Needless to say, the rollie pollie wasn't scared at all and continued on its way to the grass. It had me laughing for blocks though lol! He is too funny sometimes!

Tomorrow night is my friend Jessica's Bachelorette Party. I was invited before I was pregnant lol, so I think I will still be going, for a little bit. They even bought me a matching shirt and nicknamed me Sexy Hippie Mama or something silly like that lol. Pretty close to the right name! :P We will be doing dinner and then going out the bars afterwards. I just hope that I can have fun with them and not just become the DD lol. And I hope I don't get exhausted like right away, it will be fun to go out dancing with the girls! :) Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Here is this week's Toddler Talk Thursday! Enjoy this one, because apparently next week we are switching to something new! Be sure to check it out!







This week's topic:
Toddler Art Projects

I am an artist and an art teacher myself lol and if you readers haven't noticed there has been a lack in art class posts, as there has been a lack in art classes. This spring has been extremely slow for my art classes and I haven't really had enough kids sign up to hold my classes. :( I have been going through art withdrawal to say the least lol. :P

Alan was in my art classes up until they stopped having them and he always did great in them! He would always participate and even help out the other kids sometimes. :) The type of art projects I did with the toddlers would be clay, drawing, painting (finger painting and water painting), collage work, beadwork and basic art skills like cutting with scissors and glueing. Alan's favorite always is cutting with scissors, glueing things and painting.

Alan painting, sometime last year

Now that my art classes aren't running and I am spending most of my day at home with Alan, we have been making a point to do art projects at least twice a week. We will draw and color like every other day or whenever Alan requests to, but I try to set up a fun little project as often as I can. I let him finger paint (and have found its a lot messier at home then at work lol) and we make collages and bracelets together. And if ever we need a birthday card or one for a holiday, rather than just buying one Alan and I will make our own. I think the recipients of the cards enjoy them a lot more that way.

Thankfully, if I am not feeling up to par one week, Alan also has daycare to get his art fix. :) We often do holiday based projects with the kids, and will always be open to busting out the crayons and paper or the beads and pipe cleaners (we have found pipe cleaners work better with toddlers for beading than string).

Two beautiful bracelets Alan made me

All in all, the point of teaching toddlers art ISN'T to get them to actually create a piece of artwork and I think sometimes people forget that. The true point of it is to get the toddlers used to fine motor skills and to develop their creativity and imagination. So if half of your toddler's artwork looks the same or ends up as shredded paper (I had a student that did this with EVERYTHING lol), don't fret. They are still getting all the development they need. :)

Don't forget to tune in this time next week to see the changes made to Toddler Talk Thursday!