I love it when a little something new in the house creates a new energy, a new source of fun. Last week it was liquid chalk pens, which proved to be a really good purchase. I opened the box and off they went, doodling and writing away all day on the windows and they're still coming back to it everyday, adding something new. This weekend it was the addition of a chalkboard to the kitchen wall. A small tin of blackboard paint and a little piece of wood for the chalk to sit on and again the girls got straight in to it. We introduced them to the game 'Pictionary' and they haven't stopped playing it since. We see lots of potential with the new chalkboard, messages left for one another, games, pictures, spellings, times table practice and maybe a few inspirational words for Mummy, who likes to be reminded of the wonderful things she reads.
Our house is steadily being taken over by children's artwork, we may continue to cover every wall, but I love it. I provide some new materials and give the girls the freedom and space to just do their thing. I'm not so easygoing when it comes to other things, I like them to be in bed by a certain time, wash their hands before a meal, but when it comes to their creativity I really just want to sit back and watch it flow. When I was training to be a teacher some years ago I came across the concept of a teacher being a 'facilitator' as opposed to being a fountain of knowledge, imparting that knowledge in to the students' brains which they would just soak up. Learning and creativity doesn't work like that. There are some things I teach my children, we're still working on shoelaces and telling the time. There are also many things I don't want to teach my children, I want to be their facilitator, providing the resources and the environment in which they can learn, explore and discover things all by themselves. This is my thinking behind these new materials in our home. That and, quite simply, we had a really fun time.
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