Teaching Kids Art Through Picture Books

At the end of January, my husband and I had the opportunity to spend a few days in Miami for his work. (Thank You, Lord!) Yes, you wonderful, hardworking, under-appreciated mamas, you, too, will get to do this someday.  I hope that for you. 

After his work meetings, he shared a powerful principle with me that he was learning. The principle was this: Most people have more fear of messing up than the fear of missing out. In other words, FOMU is stronger than FOMO. We are all insecure, and we are all afraid of messing up. When faced with hard decisions, we freeze--because none of us wants to mess up.

This applies powerfully to our kids and to us when faced with something like creating art.

Fun story-while in Miami I got to see an unusual art museum called Wynwood Walls. It celebrates street art: large, spray painted murals as well as street sculptures. I got to have 3 minutes to spray paint a wall as part of the experience. This is what went through my head: "Yikes! 3 minutes! I don't ...

As  a follower of Jesus, I love thinking about how to incorporate our faith into everything we do as parents and grandparents. Since children are always watching and catching and observing, it's important to take every opportunity to share the wonderful truths we believe with them. Today in keeping with the "Space" theme,  I wanted to reflect on what a peek into the heavens taught me this month.

As I observed that amazing total solar eclipse--the moon covering the sun completely--for 4 rare minutes in Indianapolis on April 8, I was overwhelmed with awe at our Creator and His creation. One of my takeaways from this experience was that I could actually see the sun gradually disappearing behind the moon, and yet...it was still mostly light outside!

Here the sun is almost covered by the moon--but--look how light is still is!:
On the left below, the sky is still blue but the sun is mostly covered (my camera didn't capture well) and on the right, the sky got dark.
We were struck silent when ...

Would you like to help your elementary children draw a quick art project? Have you seen your children draw a house? Perhaps they have drawn your house, or maybe a house from a story, or maybe a house they are imagining. I love seeing kids draw houses. Here are two drawings given to me by children years ago, to welcome us as we moved into our new home. I have kept these drawings for 20+ years, because they remind me of how these sweet children were helping us celebrate our new home 20 years ago!

There are some fun picture books out there for elementary kids about houses that will foster your kids' curiosity and creativity. Reading picture books is a great jumping off point to get kids drawing all kinds of homes. Here is the list:  
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Here are 3 of my favorites to get you started: (Amazon links)

1. If I Built a House by Chris VanDusen

2. Home by Carson Ellis

3. Let's Go Home: The Wonderful Things about a House by Cynthia Rylant and Wendy Anderson Halperin

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Sometimes this time of year you are looking for ways to keep kids interested in giving to others, in showing love in the spirit of the season. It is all too easy for any of us, but especially for kids, to think that Christmas is all about what they get on Christmas Day. When you spend time showing them a creative way to brighten someone else's day, there is no need to say anything-they should be automatically motivated to give something away. That's a win-win, because they had fun creating something, and they will bring joy to whoever receives their homemade Christmas card. Plus, they made a fun memory doing something artistic.

Here is an idea for making Christmas cards that is fun to make and fun to give: the ever-popular pop-up Christmas card! 

Making a pop-up card isn't hard. All you need are a few simple supplies: (These are Amazon Associate links-no extra cost to you, just helpful to support Storygalorey-thank you!)

• scrap pieces of colored and white paper
• 2 pieces of constru...