Make Some Art, It Will Help

Sometimes we just can’t find the right words to express a feeling or an idea. Art is a natural way to communicate. Artist, and art therapist Catherine Rogers Jonsson writes,“Through creating art and reflecting on the art products and processes, people can increase awareness of self and others; cope with symptoms, stress, and traumatic experiences; enhance cognitive abilities; and enjoy the life-affirming pleasures of making art.”

A few fun, easy ideas:

Gather up some old newspapers, junk mail, and your child’s old art work and create a collage corner….practice cutting, tearing the papers into all different sizes and shapes. Come up with a theme: find all different shades of blue, make a garden, create an imaginary island…or just cut, tear, and glue! Have your children help you hunt for the materials, they will have fun being a collage material investigator!
Grab an old box, pull out as many different mark-making materials as you can – pens, markers, pencils, whatever you have around the house. Create a challenge: let’s cover one entire side with big looping scribbles, let’s write our name over and over again, let’s write down everything we love to eat, let’s cover one entire side with warm colors.
Make art with your child! Have them lead you. Let them choose the materials, where to work in your house / yard / porch, and then let them deside where the art work is displayed after you are done creating. Hand over the control – it’s good for you and for them!
Create a felt table (like the images in this post), it’s super for all ages. All you need it one big sheet of felt, and a few smaller sheets cut into all differnt shapes. Felt naturally sticks to itself, so You can come up with creative promts to help motivate -create an Oddanimal (like these), make something that grows, or that can move, or just leave it open for your artist to create whatever they want.