Today Freddy was off nursery as he has a nasty cough. Having his company meant that we could do some craft activities together for Valentine's Day. As a family, we enjoy any excuse to have a themed day with food and activities planned around the occasion, and Valentine's Day is no exception. You don't find me and Ian having a romantic meal for two, instead it's family fun for five!
I dug out all the crafty bits and bobs that were even vaguely heart shaped and let him go wild with a glue stick and some cardboard. I love the idea of making homemade cards for special occasions. Shop bought cards are so expensive and I end up binning them, but homemade ones cost nothing and are kept forever. They are a wonderful record of your child's artistic development, showcasing their creativity. I have over 20 year's worth of my children's drawings, paintings and cards packaged up in my garage!! (No wonder I have an issue with clutter!)
Freddy is a very active child who runs around, dances, kicks things, throws things and plays hard. He also has a fabulous vocabulary and a sharp sense of humour and is amazing with technology. Although he loves educational games on the computer and can recognise many of his letters and numbers by sight, he is extremely reluctant to pick up a pencil or crayon. He does not like to draw or colour in and makes no effort towards the early mark making that becomes emergent writing. In fact he can't even hold a pen. He just doesn't get it! I don't know if it is because he is a confused left-hander (his dad is a leftie) or if his eyes are the problem or whether there is something else going on...or whether it is just a 'boy thing'. I'm sure once he is at school he'll get into the swing of writing and drawing, and if not we will be able to work out what the problem is. But for now, rather than pressuring him into doing something he really does not want to do, I think that doing craft activities is a good way for him to develop the necessary fine motor skills required. He enjoys it too, so everyone is happy.
Freddy loved sticking the foam shapes, material hearts, paper hearts beads, sequins and googly eyes onto his design in a display of carefully considered and precisely positioned randomness!
I loved that he made the top heart into a face. That is a very Freddy thing to do! So although he wasn't impressed with the idea of signing his name inside the card, which is for his daddy, he stamped his personality all over it and it will be much treasured!
