Fun with the Book of Kells

(or how to prepare your children to see great works of art!)

When I found out that we were going to visit Ireland during our fall break from school, I knew that I wanted to see the Book of Kells, the most famous of the illuminated manuscripts hand-drawn by Irish monks during the Middle Ages. (I left it to my husband, the best trip-planner ever, to figure out the logistics of getting us there!) In fact, I'd been waiting over twenty years to see this masterpiece and could hardly contain myself at the thought of seeing it in person.

The Chi-Rho page from the Book of Kells. It actually marks the beginning of the
Christmas story in Matthew's Gospel.
Source: Art & Culture

Naturally, I wanted to pass on this excitement to my son and daughter, who are ages 9 and 6 respectively. One thing that I have learned through the years is that children tend to appreciate famous works of art in a museum setting if they know something about what they are going to see beforehand. So, in preparing to see the Book of Kells, we pulled out Sister Wendy Beckett's Story of Painting to see what she had to say about it. (Sister Wendy was my first art teacher and I am indebted to her for most of what I know about art in Western civilization!) There, we examined the Chi-Rho page pictured above and found out that the playful monks had hidden butterflies, cats and mice, angels and an otter with a fish in his mouth with in the beautiful illuminated letters.

Well, as soon as these strange-looking Greek letters turned into a picture search game, the kids got excited. My son was the first to find the butterflies and the cats. We searched forever to find the otter, but finally had to give up. When we got to see the real thing at Trinity College in Dublin, we finally found the otter with the fish in his mouth and there was much rejoicing! The preparation made the Book of Kells Exhibit, which is definitely not geared toward children, meaningful for both kids.

Photography is not allowed inside the exhibit,
so this is the only proof I have that we were there!

We had a similar experience when we visited the National Gallery in London, England this summer. We had been reading the Katie series by James Mayhew that I have mentioned before here. These are books about a little girl who visits museums with her grandmother. The grandmother always manages to fall asleep and Katie is able to crawl inside the paintings and make friends with the people in them. As we entered the first hall of the National Gallery, the kids ran up to a painting of a man and started yelling, "Look Mommy! It's Princess Margarita's father!" As I took a closer look, the painting was indeed Philip IV of Spain in Brown and Silver by Velaquez, which is featured in Katie and the Spanish Princess.

As we went room to room, they recognized other works by Murillo, Seurat, Renoir, and Degas without our help. All because they had a context and emotional attachment to the paintings through the Katie series.

So here are my tips for preparing your kids to enjoy great works of art:

1. Show them a picture of what you are going to see and talk about it. Tell them why you like it and what you think is interesting about it. Ask your child what he or she sees in the work of art.

2. Read a children's book about the artist or work of art. There are so many fantastic children's books about art these days, that it shouldn't be hard to find the right one. Just make a trip to the public library. Even if you can't find a children's book, a normal art book like Sister Wendy's can be helpful.

3. Make a game of it. Play "I Spy" with the things within the picture. Or xerox a copy and cut it into a puzzle that the kids can put together. If you are going to a larger museum with multiple works of art, make a small Memory game by gluing pairs of works to index cards.

If you have other ways to help children make the most of museum visits, please let us know about it in the comments!

Linked to Waldorf  Wednesday at Seasons of Joy

Drawing Layers: Butterflies and Flowers

One difficult concept for children in learning to draw is to mentally transform 3-D objects into two-dimensional ones. 
Betty Edwards talks about visually "flattening out the layers" in Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.  She has the reader use a transparency to hold up to an object and then trace said object with a non-permanent marker in order to see the flattening process. While very useful advice for an adult or older child, I find this to be a bit too complex for younger children.


Instead, the advice from Mona Brookes in Drawing with Children has proved most helpful to me in teaching my own children what to do. Her advice is to teach children to always draw what is "in front" first and then to draw the things in the background next. After drawing the object in front, you "skip over" it with your pencil to draw the object in the background, continuing with your line until it is finished. 


To practice this concept, I chose one of my daughter's favorite subjects: flowers and butterflies. I often use graphics from the internet and found this graphic (actually a crochet pattern) of a butterfly, bee and ladybug in front of a flower. We first drew the butterfly, ladybug and bee. Then, I showed her how draw the flower and "skip over" the parts of the flower hidden by the bugs. Her finishing touch was to add a house and people. It was a pretty exhausting process for her, but if you compare her drawing above to the original, it's impressive for a 6-year-old. 

Linked to The Magic Onions

Art & Child Development: Two Great Resources

If you want to set up an artistic atmosphere for children where they can explore the world of art, then it is helpful to know something about the developmental stages that young artists go through.  The ability to recognize what stage a child is in can help you set up user-friendly ways for him/her to make art, treasure their baby steps and also keep you from overwhelming the child by demanding more than he/she is developmentally ready for.

When my son was very young, and although I was artistic myself, I was fairly clueless about child development and how to even begin doing art with him. I knew enough to start with finger paints when he was about a year old, but that was about it.  I began to do some research and stumbled upon some great resources that I have learned a lot from.  And two of these resources can be found for free on-line.

The first, Drawing Development in Children, is a pamphlet of sorts compiled by Susan K. Donley based on the work of Viktor Lowenfeld and Betty Edwards. It provides concise explanations of the various developmental stages that children ages 2-12 experience in drawing. Click below to view the pamphlet.

Drawing Development in Children

The second, Young in Art, is "a developmental look at child art" written by Dr. Craig Roland, a professor of art at the University of Florida. An easy read with helpful real-life examples of different stages, I often go back to this for a quick reference. 

Young in Art

Roland also includes examples of constructive questions to ask a child about their work in order to encourage their verbal skills.  For example, he advises caregivers of children in the scribbling stage: "As the child gains control of scribbling, comment on the variety of movements and different marks the child has made . . . As the child starts naming his or her scribbles, listen to the child’s comments and use the meanings offered by the child as a source for dialogue." Doesn't that make more sense than the negative commentary usually give to scribbles?

I hope these articles are as helpful to you as they were to me! And I hope that you'll never look at scribbling quite the same again!

linked to The Magic Onions

Art at our House: Super Heroes

When my son was about 6 years old, he became frustrated when trying to draw human figures and asked me to teach him how to draw them better. I gave him some lessons and tips found in Mona Brook's Drawing with Children. (If you are new to my blog, I am a huge fan of the "Monart" method and highly recommend it, especially if you are uneasy with your drawing skills, but want your children to learn to draw.) 


Brooks divides the body into a series of circles and tubes that make body parts easier to "see". She does the same with the head and neck and then gives helpful tips and examples of how to position facial features in kid-friendly language and illustrations. 


Well, after those short lessons, my son, who had drawn mostly animals before, started drawing all kids of people - real ones, characters from films and more than a few made-up ones. These days he is into super heroes. So, we have sketchbooks and literally reams of paper filled with drawings of super heroes.

This is "Sonnemensch" ("Sun Man"), one of his made-up super heroes.
Sonnemensch harnesses energy from the sun and puts it to useful purposes. 

At first I was a bit uneasy about his preoccupation with super heroes and wondered if we were exposing him to too much pop culture. "Wouldn't he be better off drawing more plants, animals and trees?" I thought. But apparently, he is just doing what comes naturally to boys aged 8-10. (He's 8 as of this writing.)  Renowned art educators Betty Edwards and Viktor Lowenfeld write this in Creative and Mental Growth about what they term "The Stage of Complexity": "At nine or ten years, children try for more detail, hoping to achieve greater realism, a prized goal. Concern for where things are in their drawings is replaced by concern for how things look-- particularly tanks, dinosaurs, super heroes, etc. for boys . . . "

Almost the entire Marvel Universe on one sheet of paper.

And Craig Roland, an art professor at the University of Florida, writes in Young in Art that " . . .while many children simply copy their favorite super heroes and comic-book characters, some also invent their own characters and narrative plots  . . .  Rather than discourage such creative activity, teachers and parents should take full advantage of children’s fascination with popular culture and use it to develop their drawing abilities beyond the most basic level." 


So, my sweet child is right on schedule and I can relax a little. And admire the amazing developmental steps that he is making: )

Using Art to problem-solve

A couple of days ago, I shared our Matryoshka art project with you. Lest anyone think this all happened in one sitting or was a smooth project, let me tell you the real story. My 5 1/2 year old daughter has hit the perfectionist stage that many children between the ages of 5-7 go through.  (See this post for more about this stage.) Children this age often burst into uncontrollable tears, throw things or try to destroy their art when they do something they perceive to be a "mistake". With a little patience, however, these frustration tantrums can be great opportunities to problem-solve and learn how to channel anger into a constructive direction.

At one point while making the first painting, my daughter threw down her crayons and ran from the room screaming, "I never want to draw again!"  Hearbreaking for me, to say the least.  I took a deep breath, used every ounce of self-control not to react, and calmly reassured her that there were no mistakes in art and that she could come back to her project later if she wanted. That was on Thursday. On Saturday, she came back to the project of her own accord and started working again.  She finished it and then started another.  On Sunday, while making the collage, she did something that she was unhappy with, but looked up at me and said, "There's no mistakes in art, right Mommy?"

That made all the emotional turmoil worth it. 

Sketching Live Subjects

Flexibility seems to be a theme in my life lately.  On Monday, we had planned a day trip to the forest, but woke up that morning to rain and colder weather.  We quickly changed our plans and went to the Berlin Aquarium instead.  Our aquarium houses four floors of fish, reptiles, amphibians and insects.  (In other words, four stories of fun!) As I pushed the planned forest activities to the side and packed a picnic lunch for us, I decided that I would take along some drawing materials and encourage the kids to draw one of the creatures that they liked the most.

Turtles and Caimans in the tropical terrarium. 

Nothing trains the eye or the powers of concentration like drawing live subjects.  Drawing an animal helps a child to understand and consider it in a deeper way, like taking a mental snapshot. Observing and drawing moving subjects also requires the children to process the image in a more complex way than drawing a still life.

Unlike paints, drawing materials are light-weight and easy to transport and require little effort to unpack. I brought along the following:
1) small plywood boards to use as a stable surface for drawing (you can find these at a hobby shop or home improvement-type store)
2) colored pencils
3) A4-sized paper

A word about colored pencils: always buy good-quality ones or else they are no fun for children to draw with. The kind you get on airplanes or at a dollar store can take all the pleasure out of drawing, because the child has to press down hard to make a mark and cramp the fingers.

While children are usually braver about drawing live subjects than adults, they are not always excited about it. When I pulled out the art supplies during lunch, one child's immediate reaction was to say, "Boring!"  But interestingly enough, after this child drew the first picture, he was hooked and then wanted to draw three more.

I think several things helped. I sketched with the children and was engrossed in my own work, thereby helping to place value on the activity. But I let the children choose the pace and moved onto a new animal when they were ready, even if I wasn't. I also did not demand that the children "finish" the picture unless they wanted to.

Here you can see the plywood boards and
large pencil case for the colored pencils better.

Here are some of the children's sketches:

Sharks and a sting ray.

A butterfly extracting juice from an orange slice.

A moth. 

Turtles and Caimans.

After so much intense observation, the kids were ready to exert some physical energy.  Fortunately, the rain stopped and the sun came out and the kids hopped onto and into the fountain/sculpture in front of the Aquarium.

And of course, off came the shoes and we went home soaking wet.: )  A great way to spend a summery day! 

Linked to  The Magic Onions and Art 4 Little Hands and Ordinary Life Magic

Drawing Fairies

I haven't written about an art project in a while, so here is something my daughter and I did recently  . . . 

Fairies are just plain fun to draw.  Whether you are a five-year-old like my daughter or at the age where you stop counting the birthdays like me, they are hard to resist. So when I suggested to my daughter that we do a spontaneous drawing lesson on fairies, I didn't have to twist her arm. 

While on vacation in the Czech Republic last year, I saw this adorable book and just had to buy it.  The title translates to "Insidious Plants" and weaves a practical lesson for young children about poisonous garden plants around a story about fairies. It is an ingenious idea and I wish that we had it in English.  The illustrations are gorgeous (the illustrator, Eva Chupikova, is apparently also a fashion illustrator in Prague) and my daughter loves to look at it and often has me translate passages into English for her.   Because I love to use graphics to train the eye, this book was perfect for our lesson.

My daughter picked out a fairy in the book to use as inspiration for her drawing. Using the principles in Drawing with Children by Mona Brookes, we dissected her into the shape families. Here are the steps that we used int he picture below: 1) I had her draw a semicircle for the face. 2) Then she added two thin lines for the neck. 3) Next, she drew an egg shape for the torso. 4) Then, two large curves for the dress and long thin curves for the arms. 

The subsequent steps: 6) She made long, thin oval shapes for the wings. 7) I instructed her to make large eyes and a small mouth and nose. 8) She added a small oval and curved line for a tiara. 

Next she worked on the background adding a horizon line. I had her add whatever she wanted and she chose trees, a butterfly, a dragonfly and flowers. 

She then took a purple chalk pastel and colored the sky.

Then, my daughter did what many children do and cause their parents to freak out.  (And had I no experience with children and art, I would do the same.) She began to tell a story of a storm coming in and colored over the drawing first with gray and then a green marker.  With young children, it's about the process and experience and not the final result! She also got tired before everything was colored and quit before the butterflies were finished. Again, it's about the process and not about the final result.: )

And this is my picture that I drew just for fun:

Yep, you never get too old to draw fairies!

Linked to The Magic Onions

Jump St(art) in Math

I’ve written a lot about art books that inspire me, but I am fortunate to have some real people around me for inspiration as well!  Stephanie Jünemann  is a professional artist who some years ago turned her attention to teaching art.  We got to know each other through our sons, who were in the same kindergarten and now the same school together. I love tossing around ideas with her and seeing what she will come up with next. Today, I’d like to share one of her projects with you, and at the same time give you an example of some of the amazing creativity in art education going on in Germany.

The elementary school that our boys attend here in Berlin specializes in early childhood mathematics.  Mathematical concepts permeate every subject the children learn.  Accordingly, when asked to teach an after-school art class, Stephanie came up with an idea called “Mathematischen Phänomenen auf der Spur” (Tracking down Mathematical Phenomena”).  In this class, math and art came alive to the children as they crafted geometric bodies and drew pictures illustrating the cool things one can do with a little mathematical knowledge.

Here are just a few of the things the children made and learned:

 Geometry: They learned all about triangles and how to make them into three-dimensional objects such tetrahedons, pyramids, and other geometric bodies.

Two dimensional triangles make a star of David, but that's not all . . . 

add a few more and they become a 3-D polyhedron.

These children are happily cutting and pasting triangles . . . 

to make an icosahedron!

Exponential growth: They drew number trees to visually explore this concept.  The trunk of the tree is a one. The child then draws two branches that are marked with a two. Then each branch gets two more smaller branches that are marked with four and each of them get two more until you end up with  . . . Voila!

An impressive number tree!

Examples of student work.

And number flowers, too: The middle is one, then you add five petals, and then two more to each of the five and so on.

The little artist here working on his number flower just happens to belong to me!

Perspective, horizons and vanishing points: They explored these concepts by drawing pictures with vanishing lines and placing objects such as streets, trains and trees within the vanishing lines. (My son’s perspective skills improved immensely after doing this exercise a few times with Steffi.) 

And this is only the tip of the iceberg!  If you would like to know more or use some of Stephanie’s curriculum ideas, please feel free to contact her.

Remember "art" is the root word of "start"!

Art is the Root Word of "Start"

The first children, besides my own, that I ever tried to teach art to were the son and daughter of good friends.  The 6-year-old son, Cooper, was a bright, likeable child.  Much to my dismay, in the middle of each of our drawing lessons, Cooper would burst into tears and refuse to draw anymore, often negatively comparing himself to his older sister who seemed to do everything perfectly. Cooper’s outbursts were usually precipitated by a mark that he perceived as an irreparable “mistake”.  (I had the children purposely draw with pens or markers to avoid erasing.) At first, I was at a loss as to how to help him and a bit frustrated over his behaviour.  Eventually, I took the course of action recommended by Mona Brookes in “Drawing with Children”.  I constantly repeated the mantra that “there are no mistakes in art – only changes to be made” and tried to help Cooper think through what changes he could make to end up with a drawing that he was satisfied with and that expressed his thoughts.  Eventually, Cooper stopped the crying spells and began to understand how he make changes to his drawings that led to more exciting possibilities. This process with Cooper was an important lesson for me in observing one of the most valuable skills that children can learn through art:  problem solving.

So why is art important in a child’s education and why is it important in the church?  I will begin by answering the first question. (The second question will be another blog entry!)  Art assists children in developing foundational skills that will overflow into all other academic and practical areas of their lives.  Art is the root word of “start”.  Quite simply, art gives children a place to start.  A place to start developing language skills.  A place to start learning to solve problems.  A place to develop perseverance by seeing a project to its logical end.  Not to mention, that it is a fun place to start!

Art author and educator MaryAnn F. Kohl identifies 5 areas where children develop life skills through art:  communication, problem solving, social and emotional, fine motor, and self-expression / creativity.  I have written much in this blog about language development in young children.  Children are sensorimotor learners who have the ability to reflect, but lack the language skills to express themselves.  Here, art, be it visual or performing arts (music, dance) can help children express ideas that their tongues can not yet readily put into words.  And their art teachers, by asking the right questions, can help them begin to talk about their work.  Mona Brooks also writes that teachers have reported “dramatic increases in letter recognition and reading readiness” as well as increased motivation to read when art is combined with other subjects. (For details on the other areas, see Kohl’s article, “The Importance of Art in a Child’s Development”.)

Just as nature has a calming effect on children that increases concentration, Brookes also writes that children with attention deficit disorders also experience increased concentration when working on art projects.  Brooks herself was a teacher for at-risk students with learning disorders and writes of their progress in “Drawing with Children”. (Read more in the article, “Teaching Basics Through the Arts”.)

Jo Murphy, an art educator in Brisbane, Australia, drawing on the work of John Dewey and Elliot Eisner, writes that art teaches students to make judgements about qualitative relationships in the world, thereby increasing their problem-solving skills and ability to interpret their world. (Read the full article, “Creative Arts Develop Problem-Solving Skills”.)

Another great article to read on the benefits of fostering creativity and the hindrances to it is “Creativity in Young Children” by Sara Gable.

My own son is also now in a perfectionist phase where he frequently bursts into tears at having made a “mistake”.  This time around, though, I realize that it is an important part of his development.  And he is starting to problem-solve rather than being paralyzed by his mistakes.  A good start indeed. 

The following pictures are my children's rendition of a wonderful winter art project from Gail at That Artist Woman.  My son had his latest opportunity to problem solve while working on this project. 

Before: there were lots of tears when my son in a hurry to finish picked up a paintbrush and used black paint to paint the polar bear's features.  After what seemed like an eternity, he calmed down and began to think with me how he could change it.

After:  he decided to let the white and black paint dry and then paint over  what he didn't like with white paint.  Then, he drew the new facial features in with a pencil.  We were both pleased with  the result!

And just for fun, here is my 5-year-old daughter's painting.  I was so pleased with her polar bear stencils that she drew all by herself!

Doing Art Together

My own children were my first guinea pigs in learning to teach art to children and incorporate it into their spiritual journey.  When they were still quite young, Kate, my art teacher friend in Texas, highly recommended that I read a book called Doing Art Together by Muriel Silberstein-Storfer.  Kate had finished an internship under Muriel at the MET in New York and her own teaching style had been highly influenced by Muriel’s work.  Like Drawing with Children that I mentioned in a previous post, this book helped set me on the path that I am now on.

    

I don’t know if Muriel has a background in or any connections to Montessori, but her principles fit very well within the Montessori context.  The basic philosophy of the book is that children explore art at their own pace with the help of a simple structure and prepared environment.  Parent and child sit at the same table together with each focused on his/her own work.   The importance of the child’s “work” is validated by the parent’s involvement in his/her own art. To this day in children’s church, I often sit with the children during the creative phase and work on my own artwork as they are working on theirs.  I rarely finish anything (!), but this communicates to the children that what they are doing is valuable. It also sharpens my ability to be spontaneously creative.

A typical session is comprised of three rounds in which children are given opportunities to work with paint, collage and sculpture respectively. Depending on time, one can do all three or just one or two.  (I had never worked with collage much before and actually discovered through this parent-child workshop that collage is my favorite artistic medium.)  Muriel also gives teaching tips for each medium as well as suggestions about how to talk with the children about their work.

Some significant practical advice that I gained from Muriel’s book was how to prepare the environment in an orderly way to teach respect for the materials and avoid chaos, but at the same time allow children the freedom to manipulate the materials as they choose. (I have to admit that I had always been nervous about children and paint, but Muriel’s tips convinced me that I could paint with my children and still keep my walls intact!) Painting materials are set out on tray with one tray per child / parent.  Small amounts of paint (primary colors, black and white) are squeezed into furniture castors so that only as much paint as needed is used.  Two paintbrushes (one large and one small), a sponge, and a water container for rinsing are set on the tray as well.  After the session, the child is involved in the clean-up process as well.

Here is my set-up for a left-hander.  I use baby food lids instead of furniture castors for the paint and yogurt cups for water bowls. 

This is my son at age 3 shortly after we started the Doing Art Together method. 

My 1-year-old daughter also participated, but I started her off with finger paints first. 

If you are seeking to incorporate art into your children’s ministry, classroom, or even at home, this book is a must-read!

Click on Doing Art Together for more about Muriel's work. 

Teaching Children to Draw

When I tell people that I give my children drawing lessons, they often look at me as if I could turn water into wine.  Although it's been a magical experience to teach them, the method that I use to do it fortunately doesn't require any supernatural abilities. On a trip to the States just before my son turned three (almost 5 years ago), I was looking for some books with art projects for children.  I caught a glimpse of the book below:

 

Every once in a while you run across a book that changes your life.  As soon as I saw this, I knew that I had to have it. I was especially intrigued by the subtitle: "A Creative Method for Adult Beginners, Too".  Could I (gasp!), who had always tried to draw, but was unable to overcome my perfectionism, actually learn to draw as well?  The answer was yes, and I would get to teach my children and others as well.: )

The premise of Mona Brooke's phenomenal book is that absolutely anyone can be taught to draw.  There are basic components in drawing, that once you know them, enable one to learn.  It is comparable to the phonetic sounds in a language that help one to learn to read, or notes in music.  Knowing these basics principles, according to Brookes, is key to developing drawing skills. 

Equally important is having the right attitude, which proved to be the key to helping me as an adult, and is also essential for children to progress. One of Brookes' sayings that has become my mantra with children, is that "in art there are no mistakes, only changes to be made".

The following is a little bit of what I have learned from Ms. Brookes. A typical drawing lesson begins with simple relaxation exercises for the eyes and limbs.  Then we review the basic shape "families" by finding things in the room or outside the window that belong to these families. Next, I give each child a set of warm-up exercises that are much like scales and etudes in music.  Below is what I gave my 4-year-old daughter on Tuesday.  My sketches are in black and hers in red.  The object is not for her to make an exact copy of what I have drawn, but rather to fill in the space in a similar manner.

On this particular day, we decided to do a still life of pumpkins, chestnuts and leaves.  I recently started letting her use oil pastels and she was very excited about this.  Together, we drew the still life with me guiding her through the shape families that the objects are composed of.  I drew on my paper and she drew on hers. 

Here is the her result below.  You'll notice that it is not an exact representation, but that is not the purpose of drawing.  When we draw, we interpret what we see rather than making exact copies.  What is also interesting in her pictures are the repetition of certain elements that are early indicators of design.

I know for sure that I didn't find this book by accident. Though creative as a child, frustration at not being able to draw realistically led me to give up on myself as an artist.  And in another life, I might have studied art education.  There were other factors as well that caused me to follow another path, including lack of an adequate art program at the time I was growing up; the Berlin Wall coming down as I was entering university and making the idea of learning Russian irresistable; and the lie that art teachers are only people who couldn't make it in the art world themselves.  Anyway, the path that I eventutally followed led to some very valuable life experiences, and when the time was right, God began to resurrect dreams that had been dead so long that I had forgotten about them.

Creative Phase: The Tabernacle

The church plant that we are a part of offers a Family Brunch twice a month.  We brunch together and then I lead a children's worship service afterwards.  Last Sunday, I told the children the Godly Play story, "Die Bundeslade und das Zelt der Begegnung" ("The Ark of the Covenant and the Tent of Meeting").  The story was completely new to the children and even my son, who is quite knowledgeable about the Bible, was unfamiliar with the Tabernacle and its furnishings. 

Typically, after a Godly Play Story, the children choose their own art materials and express their thoughts on the story (or anything else they are thinking about!) to explore what they have heard or express worship to God.  There is a great discussion in German Godly Play circles about whether the creative phase can be "angeleitet" (instructional or not) and this same discussion is also going on in the Montessori world over how much an art lesson/project can be instructional.  (If it bugs anyone that I throw German words into my sentences, I can't do anything about it.  It just expresses who I am during this season of life.)  I happen to think that it can as long as the children have room to determine the course and outcome of their creation and I experiment with such in our worship service.

All that to say that on Sunday, we had an instructional creative phase based on the Tabernacle story.  I got the idea while doing an autumn art project from Deep Space Sparkle with my kids in which we painted leaves with white paint and made prints on black paper.

1. First I made stamps for the children using foam rubber and sponges based on the furniture in the Tabernacle (accidentally left out the bronze basin filled with water!), symbols for the Trinity, and a person.

(You might be wondering why I included the symbols for the Trinity.  I have been heavily influenced by Tim Keller's "Christocentric" method of teaching and I try to help the children see that the Old and New Testaments have a natural relationship to them rather than being separate entities that have nothing to do with one another.)

2. Next I instructed the children to think of a place where there they like to meet with God and paint this as a background of sorts.

3. Then, the children were encouraged to add the stamps, as many or as few as they saw fit, to their pictures.

The children, even the youngest (age 3), took lots of time with their pictures and the results were quite dramatic. (They especially loved the gold paint!)

 (age 7)

 (age 6)

(age 3)

(age 4)

I love my job!!