Imprints From Tricia

Well it's no secret I am just a little blog slowly trying to build readership beyond my own mother. ;)

I had high hopes for this blog when I created it a little over a year ago. I started off strong trying to create good content, networking and diving head first into the mom blog world. I slowly began to lose steam due to an increasingly difficult pregnancy last year. This year I resolve to continue to strive to create a blog worthy of anyone who takes time out of their busy day to read what I share. I hope to inspire and be inspired!

On that note I wanted to share my top 5 blog posts of 2012. Perhaps you may missed some of these? Either way it's fun to look back and see what content seemed to resonate the most with my readers.

1. story-extension-activity-with-leo lionni

2. parent-like-its-1984-are-we-over involved as parents?

3. letters-to-my-daughters

4. sink-or-float-experiment

5. gearing-up-for-project-365-2013

If you are a new reader welcome, happy to have you!! If you are an old friend thanks for sticking around! Above all I am keenly aware of the plethora of blog choices and internet entertainment you have to choose from and I am humbled and grateful that you choose to read what I have to say and share.

Happy New Year and much peace, love and blessings for 2013!!

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While I love doing projects with my kids that have an end in mind, projects that are suppose to create something specific I also truly believe in the value of exposing our children to open ended and child directed art forms. This philosophy aligns with aspects of The Reggio Emilia Approach. I used to be a preschool teacher in a Reggio school and I saw first hand the benefits of child directed/open ended art.

We do a ton of open ended art that goes un-blogged/un-documented simply because it's created in the moment and unplanned. This one however was planned and set up ahead of time.

I started with setting up a variety of Christmas themed materials. Bows, green and red paint, glitter, scissors and green and red tissue paper squares.

I placed the materials out for the girls to explore and experiment with. Again, I had no end product in mind. The idea was simply to allow them to use the materials however they wanted.

They both immediately started painting.

They experimented with mixing the colors red and green.

My 4 year old was the first to add the glitter and use the tissue paper to stick on the paper.

Jillian my 2 year old enjoyed cutting up the tissue into small pieces.

They both used all the materials and explored with different ways to add them to their art work. They were truly engaged and encouraged to take their time! All the while we had Christmas music playing while we made our creations next to the Christmas Tree!

This is my 4 year olds final product!