Some days I have so much running through my brain I can’t focus on anything for very long. This busy month of January is like that, I feel like I need to start solving next week’s problems before this week’s projects are even really started.
One part of me feels like I should just do what I can and let the rest be what it will…but I’ve never been very good at that so having peace about everything is somewhat rare!
We’re back in our regular schedule though and I’m realizing that I’ll have to keep pushing if we’re not to stagnate.
F is back in school and Su has discovered that she can concentrate and get through her schoolwork quickly (30-45 minutes for three subjects! Yay!)W is always happy to have crayons and something to color on.
Yesterday though I ran into something which I know I need to work on- but I’m not sure how…
I had prepared an art project for the children: color a sky and snow scene, cut out and assemble a bird to glue into the scene. Age and skill appropriate, and something they should have enjoyed doing.
Wrong. Su enjoyed it and spent some time adding embellishments including a pair of really long legs. F however was panicked by it.
That is really his reaction. He needed/wanted huge amounts of help (and he shouldn’t have, the project was well within his skill level) and wanted me to show him exactly where to put each part of the bird even telling me that he didn’t know which end of a bird the beak belonged on!
I’ve seen this reaction to open-ended assignments before, but not as strongly as this (and I do think part of the problem was that Su had done her’s already and therefore her version was the “correct” version). I think he needs to learn to deal with things that don’t have an exact or correct solution but am unsure how to achieve that end.
Any ideas?
Just a thought….
What if you were to provide him with selected materials, you choose or he does, a time frame to work on a project and then just let him go. Let him create whatever comes to him with the boundaries that you have set and see what happens. You could use this as a chance to identify that not every action has a “correct” answer or “perfect”, set outcome, the project is whatever he makes of it and that is the real learning opportunity. Cultivate a little curiosity and see where it goes.
Happy Cultivating!