Teaching Kids Art Through Picture Books

Sometimes, we all need an infusion to help the creative juices flow again

Recently, after a season of creating and creating and creating, I just found myself needing a little boost. I felt empty of ideas…dry…dull…blank. It’s almost like the feeling of being hungry or not getting enough sleep. Have you or your kids ever felt that way, especially when asked to make or create something? 

We cope with this brain fog by scrolling endlessly on our phones, which adds to the fog, or by putting our heads down to finish the endless round of tasks in front of us. That’s ok for a little while, but we weren’t meant to live that way for long, and neither were kids. We are created to create! God Himself is an infinitely deep, joyful, creative person who made human beings in His image to appreciate beauty and to create.

So if you want your kids to create, you must feed that creativity, as if you were watering a plant you want to grow strong and healthy. 

What can you do to encourage your kids t...

“Help! What do I do with All. This. Artwork????” 

“My child is prolific! Our house is overrun with art! I don’t want to throw it away, but how do I deal with the paper mess?” 

I understand, and I’ve been there. Before there was Facebook, the internet, or Etsy, there were bulletin boards, binders, and magnetic refrigerators. And walls. So there I lived during the 90’s when my little ones were busy coloring every available surface they were allowed with a marker or a crayon.

Thankfully, I have more options for you today than I had for myself when I was a young mom, and I’m happy to share these artwork display ideas from my own recent research and some help from Storygalorey mom Cara Lewis, who shared her ideas with me-thank you! 

Here are 13 ways to keep (at least some of) your kid’s art without too much overwhelm:

1. Bulletin Board: You can easily find bulletin boards or cork squares at Walmart, Amazon, or even Goodwill. Let your kid have an ever changing artwork display that chan...

Are you a New Year's resolution kind of person? Do you make goals at some point for your kids and your family life, or do you mostly go with the flow? I haven’t always written down my family goals, but I do tend to be goal oriented-I find I get stuff done more when I have time to gather my thoughts, hopes, and dreams, and write them down. Sometimes they just live in my head and I veer my actions toward them instinctively, and sometimes they live in my head and just annoy me because I do nothing about them. 

Goals are signposts. If our actions repeatedly line up on the road the goals are pointing to, we form habits that help us achieve the goal. For example, we might have a goal to exercise 3 times a week this year.  We join the YMCA. Then we go once-it takes a huge amount of motivation because it is unfamiliar and takes extra time. We go again because it felt good.(repeated actions, forming a habit)  Pretty soon we are carving out time 3 times a week, and it is a good habit in our liv...