The grand-girls now expect to do an art project as soon as I arrive. Sometimes it is just drawing with the “woodies” that I have. After the Stabilio Woody set I had bought for Roen got dispersed and many were lost or thrown away, I decided if I bought a set I would keep it for myself and bring it for the girls to use when I am there. Woodies are thick wood pencils with high pigment water soluble crayons in them. They are better than regular crayons because you can get very deep colors if you wet the pencil. You can also spread the color around with a paint brush if you use the right paper. And they are indestructible and they are for the most part washable.
I showed up to babysit my granddaughters and a pile of catalogs and junk mail was on the kitchen table. My daughter knows me and knows I would do something with it. And sure enough before she could even get her coffee and go upstairs to her office we were setting up to make collages. I got out the scissors. I put the some Elmer’s glue in a top of a yogurt container and cut up some rectangles of cardboard and showed the girls how to spread a thin film of glue on the back of what ever piece they wanted to stick on to their collage. Much to my surprise they both mastered the technique and best of all we did not end up with a massive glue mess. The 2.5 year old needed some help especially when her pieces were tiny. But the 5 year old quickly became very good at using just the right amount of glue. Now between negotiating the bickering about who got to cut out the gingerbread house and helping the two year old find a star or doggy of her own to cut out I worked on my own collage. And when I left on Tuesday it was not particularly interesting. In fact I used the top half of the paper and woodies to explain “complimentary colors” to Roen. We worked on the collages some more on Thursday when Mae went down for her nap. And as Roen worked so did I. And much to my surprise something started to emerge. Roen must have thought I was pretty silly because once I realized I had a successful art piece I became increasingly excited and focused on it. And then, because our peer-art group was meeting that evening I found a spot that worked and took a photo of it to post to Padlet. Roen of course wanted me to take a picture of her collage as well. At first she asked me if I could take a talking picture with her not moving in it. We played around and finally she ended up with a video she was proud of.
