My youngest son watched some Curious George while I put the baby down for her nap. George built a tree house. Naturally, Lem wanted to build a tree house. I had to break it to him that we couldn’t build a REAL tree house right then. I COULD get out paper and popsicle sticks and we could do a tree house craft. He was (surprisingly) okay with that, thank heaven.
So I pulled out white paper, green and brown, a bottle of glue, scissors, popsicle sticks. I drew a tree trunk and the tree’s leafy top. He cut. He glued. He meticulously piled up 57 popsicle sticks.
Though this project began with a television show, I immediately thought of one of my favorite children’s books: We Were Tired of Living in a House, by Liesl Moak Skorpen. (Check out that link for my quick thoughts about this wonderful book.) I pulled it off the shelf, ready to read.
I have always made a point of letting the kids do their own handiwork, usually putting up with the mess and dealing reasonably well with “less than perfect” results. How can our kids learn to create masterpieces if we are afraid of scissors cuts and glue messes? (Occupational therapists agree, BTW). My kids are getting very capable.
Their independence isn’t always without mishap; you’ll notice the scratch on Lem’s cheek, where he swiped the scissors by accident. Ouch (but no band-aid needed). It’s also true that with these projects kids usually reach a point of tired hand muscles that leads to crankiness about continuing onward to the goal. I helped him with the glue squeezing after awhile. My plan to read to Lem while he did the craft was postponed.
And here it is, 15 of those popsicle sticks later.
He didn’t want to read the book (and I was–surprisingly–okay with that).
