Make the time to learn exciting. It should be. It should never be anything less than creative and wonderful.
We featured a kids’ learning party set like a banquet. Each table had a subject matter specific activity. A focus challenge, a make and take, and a new fun fact—-all elegantly and creatively placed. A Learning Banquet.
Some of us remember Marie Osmond and her 1973 hit “Paper Roses.” But not all paper roses pretend to be real. The essence of creating is always inspired by nature somewhere at the root. But creating paper flowers with children is not for the purpose of deception. The beauty of the paper flower:
-color sense
-material awareness
-studying nature
-thrifty gifts for mom
-arrangement and spatial awareness
-project follow-through
If you home-school, or even if you simply supplement your children’s education with extended learning at home, it’s good to have a cabinet dedicated to the supplies you acquire. Particularly if you are like me and you beg and borrow for freebies, you need a place for them. Here we see cast-off advertising posters from a department store that are perfect on one side (card stock quality) for countless planning stages or even final stages of projects for students.
Having a designated spot helps you gage how much space you want to give over to this type collection, as once you get into the habit of scouting for items, you’ll find you don’t want to stop! And soon you’ll be ordering a dumpster for extreme purges (see photo. . .it actually happened!)
Designate the space, inventory it often, keep it full but not overflowing and encourage the creative process for your learners!
It’s time to start the school year, or nearly so. Parents everywhere are gearing up for their children’s schooling choices, often at home. Most people who know me or read my blog know that I’m a huge fan of themes in teaching and learning—it adds a framework and keeps a theme of higher order thinking involved from the start. So I encourage a gesture to start the year. Here you see, a door! With a possible theme of animals, even as specific as pigs, the children enter their year of learning; (don’t want to commit to one theme for a year? Choose one theme a month, or week or semester). Pigs is so rich. . .a controversial topic, even. Yet so much a part of childhood lore and story life. What will you use to open the door for keeping a creative mindset for learning this year?
One of the fun parts of educating is helping children discover and notice, for lack of a better way of saying it, “life’s rich pageant.” I recall a professor of Shakespeare I had in college when I did not do well on the first exam and I went to her to learn how to do better. She pointed out that I was missing the “good stuff” when I read the plays. . ..the depth of character, the archetypal insight, the beauty of the language. So often the experience of schooling, because we (ironically) sacrifice the austerity aspects that actually foster BETTER education in some regards, detracts from the “good stuff.” Parents (and teachers who can sort the wheat and chaff of cumbersome educational systems (that I’m not condemning, but about which I am pointing out the drawbacks)), can help learners (ALL learners. . .because all learners are the wheat!!) discover the “good stuff”. . ..the nuance and subtlety available when we look. When we know how to look—-when we’ve been shown to look.
spring: to rise, leap, move, or act suddenly and swiftly, as by a sudden dart or thrust forward or outward, or being suddenly released from a coiled or constrained position:to spring into the air; a tiger about to spring.
spring: to cause to fly back, move, or act, as by resiliency, elastic force, a spring, etc.:to spring a lock.
spring: a leap, jump, or bound.
spring: a sudden movement caused by the release of something elastic.
While many think. . .hey, it’s summer. Let’s forget about school for a while. I’d say it’s a golden opportunity to reflect on what went well, what didn’t go well and what we want to see more of in our child’s education, particularly if we are educating them from at home or in a small group. Scissors and Glue organizes most things in terms of themes. My challenge to parents who will be home-schooling children in the fall is: begin your list of themes now. Anything. . .birds, flowers, types of boats, types of cars, etc etc. . . we must engage students in being captivated by learning!
As we look ahead, and as we look back, it’s important to remember that the schooling choices we make for our children are ready to be written. Rather than seeing this as a daunting task, we should embrace the fact that the selection has likely opened up more than it has closed as the pandemic is more and more behind us. Now is the time to ask ourselves what actually improved when everything stopped or slowed down and we had a chance to explore new resourcefulness, creativity and parameters. In the coming months, Scissors and Glue will both explore and offer robust choices for K-12 and developmental schooling going forward.
When I was in middle school and in a lot of clubs, I cocked my head 45 degrees to the left in nearly every picture I was in with said clubs for the yearbook.
I have had consultations on how to improve my blog and one point was that a lot times my pictures turn up sideways. Yes, they do.
But the truth is, I do all my own stunts. . . I mean all my own blog posts and I’m so busy and eager to get on to my next crafting project or class or workshop, that I just don’t take the time to fix the sideways pictures.
It’s not a statement of disrespect. Quite the opposite. I want to get to the next grand idea for my readers. So if you don’t mind, just tilt your head 45 degrees to the left and bear with my as I perfect my blogging skills.
–the Management
