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dolorsofmary
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| Posted: Aug 27 2010 at 9:05pm | IP Logged
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My 5 yr old son just turned 5 this month so he is a very young 5. And like most boys handwriting is a struggle. He is my one and only and I am the youngest of 2 so I don't really know what I should expect here really. I wonder if I am expecting too much. It has to do with drawing and his perfectionism. I have a small talent in art and he wants his things to turn out perfect like mine, well not all the time but if it is a beloved craft then he really really wants it to turn out perfect.
So like we usually try to recognize the saint of the day and if he is so inclined I give him the materials and help him a little bit with making a spoon saint and no this is not my website, they are soo creative, isn't it wonderful! Well anyway I always draw the face on the spoon because it is pen on wood and I figure that that would be too much for a very young 5 yr old little boy and those spoons are small.
So tonight we made this :http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/insects/mbouncypillar.htm and I recall from little library and nature center classes that the teacher would do the craft 1st or at least ahead of time so I did it for him to see and then I folded the paper for his project and had him cut along the creases and we used tape for whenever he cut wrong - no big deal and then I showed him out to do the accordian pleats and he did GREAT! I was very impressed and he should be very proud of himself. So all went well until the drawing of the face. Ok it is only a 1 inch by 1 inch face. But I thought he can draw something and be satisfied. No!! he wanted it to look perfect like mine. I explained to him that I have years and years of experience and if he does not try he will not learn and that this is his job, and whatever he does will be wonderful and that this is pen (chunky pen) on paper not wood. And when he messed up we just cut out another piece of yellow paper and glued it on top of the old so no big deal. I also drew a step by step of how to draw the face since he was so determined to get it to look perfect. This went on for maybe 1 hour or more! I kept trying to get him to do his own work, for him to draw. He drew what I felt was a good R2D2 and a good robot about 1 week ago, it was very rough but you make out the general shapes. And they were certainly bigger than this face. I didn't feel that this face was tiny tiny though . But then I was thinking maybe this is too much fine motor skill for him? Hmmm.... maybe I was too hard on him? My husband had him cut out the last step of my step by step instructions (the completed face) and my son glued that onto his caterpillar and that FINALLY ended the dispute.
Wow! Well it makes me think taht I should get the book - what your 5 year old should know but well i have curriculum for my kid but I want to know if this drawing skill is too demanding for him. Maybe I should have handled it differently? I wonder if there is a website that can direct me?
Thank you!
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JodieLyn
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I'd do lots more free form.. not following a pattern.. just workign with the various art supplies vs making a particular project.
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guitarnan
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| Posted: Aug 27 2010 at 9:45pm | IP Logged
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Motor skills take a while to develop, particularly fine motor skills (like writing and drawing). There are some things your son can do (that are fun) that help to develop fine motor skills.
Most kids his age love using eye droppers to transfer water from one container to another. This is a great fine motor exercise. You can make it ultra-fun by putting food coloring in a container or two of water and offering him the eye dropper so he can move the colored water around and see the changes he creates. (You will need several containers - not very big - with clear and colored water, plus an empty or two for his experiments.)
Picking up objects with tweezers (try cotton balls) also develops fine motor skills.
Sidewalk chalk, cutting with scissors (try paper snowflakes) and making paper airplanes are also fun ways to build fine motor skills.
There's no "right" way to do any of these activities, either, so your son won't feel frustrated (well...he could cut a snowflake in half, but then he'll just have a tiny snowflake).
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mamaslearning
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| Posted: Aug 28 2010 at 8:20am | IP Logged
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JodieLyn wrote:
| I'd do lots more free form.. not following a pattern.. just workign with the various art supplies vs making a particular project. |
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I agree with JodieLyn. Lots of blank paper with crayons and paints or even clays and playdoh.
This site has some Montessori activities http://mymontessorijourney.typepad.com/my_montessori_journey /montessoripractical_life/. I like these type of activities and your library should have some Montessori books to browse for more activities. I don't do them per the actual Montessori method, but I offer them as activities. My boys especially like taking apart and putting back together nuts and bolts, and also this activity http://www.montessoriservices.com/store/index.php?main_page= index&cPath=4423_110_130_1678 (my FIL made us one of these).
Also, I've always heard and can see it in my boys, that boys develop fine motor skills a little later. They tend (only in my experience) to like chunckier pencils and crayons while my daughter preferred regular slender pens and pencils.
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Angie Mc
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| Posted: Aug 28 2010 at 8:39am | IP Logged
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Delorsofmary, here are a few tips to try:
If a task is too difficult at the moment, take a break *before* the point of frustration for the child. Once calm, try again.
Set a timer for 20 minutes. Rare is the child who wants to do a frustrating task for 1 hour at the age of five. If he can't handle 20 minutes, try 15 or 10 or 5 until you have reached his length of time for success.
His art project is not about you. It is his. Stay detached.
Stagger the project with another acitivty. After 10 minutes if he shows fatigue, say "Let's take a 5 minute break and run around the yard" or the like. Then come back to the project.
dolorsofmary wrote:
But I thought he can draw something and be satisfied. No!! he wanted it to look perfect like mine. I explained to him that I have years and years of experience ...This went on for maybe 1 hour or more!
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When a child is emotionally upset, this is not the time to reason with him. First, we need to settle down the emotion. How this is done will depend on the child and situation. Examples are to say to the child, "I can see that you are not happy with your project, can I give you a hug?" or "We don't let ourselves get out of control while doing art projects. Rest on your bed until you are settled down then we can talk about what we want to do next."
All children get frustrated with craft projects from time to time, but not all children want their projects to look perfect or real. Monart drawing classes, either with you or at a studio, may be a good fit for you both.
Love,
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LucyP
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I don't think any book or website can tell you what your own individual son will or will not find too much for his own abilities, concentration span and personality. My son did pretty basic blobby art until he was 6 and a quarter and then suddenly he was doing loads of detail, really paying attention to how things look and churning out pages of art a day. Our daughter at 3 draws better than he did at 5, and I worked with a boy who was 11 but who drew like a 3 or 4 year old - so things can vary so much.
One thing that I find really helps my children (3 and 6) with art/crafts is that I will do it too alongside them, and will do it as a peer rather than as the expert or teacher, pointing out my own short-comings, how I keep going, how I "fix things", how I accept that I am learning and will get better with practice. I also emphasise to them that I love what they do because we are all different. But by the time they are wound up or fed up, talking is no point so I just will end the activity and say we can go back to it later if we want, and then do something different. I personally would not let my little ones spend an hour stressing over a small detail of a project but it is easy to get sucked into it with a young one who wants to get it right.
For such young ones I am happy with art/craft being more about having fun than the end result. I know some people do not ever display their child's art if the child gets uptight about perfectionism, to clarify that the end result does not matter.
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Grace&Chaos
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I agree with LucyP the end result can be so different for each child. My ds 5 can outdraw his older sister age 10. He has the patience to sit and follow through on a drawing or art project in general. He is not a perfectionist but does pay attention to detail. This transcends into other medium as well: his legos, playing cards, stack of cups, etc. He will try to create out of just about anything.
Are there other things your son enjoys? Maybe let him try to be creative with some of the already mentioned activities to strengthen his motor skills. We spent the last year doing art appreciation/picture study with my kids. They had the option to tell me about the art or try to draw it themselves. Ofcourse my dd10 always describes and uses words rather than actually draw. My ds 5 made some pretty good attempts to draw exactly what he saw (for a preschooler ofcourse)  .
I just thought of Drawing with Children by Mona Brookes we used this with my dd 10 about three years ago because she lacked the confidence to even want to draw. So even though she doesn't enjoy it, if asked to she will use the basic techniques mentioned in the book (and they are decent results). 
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Grace&Chaos
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| Posted: Aug 28 2010 at 11:13am | IP Logged
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mamaslearning wrote:
| Also, I've always heard and can see it in my boys, that boys develop fine motor skills a little later. They tend (only in my experience) to like chunckier pencils and crayons while my daughter preferred regular slender pens and pencils. |
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Forgot to mention. We use the chunky pencils for writing, the same chunky size color pencils/crayons for art and a thicker handle brush for paint drawing. I purchased them through Lakeshore Learning Store. I found my boys can grip these better.
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dolorsofmary
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Thank you all for your wonderful and thoughtful replies. I have ordered a fine and gross motor skills book and contacted a friend who gives kids my son's age drawing classes. Her daughter is my son's age and they were in ballet/tap class together. I hope to help him build confidence with his ability to grow in drawing since he seems to be just such a perfectionist on some things. And really I was searching for something completely different and he saw that craft when I clicked on a different website and he said that he really wanted to do it, so because of that we did it. I didn't choose it for him, he choose it for himself. Thank you all!
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LucyP
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| Posted: Aug 28 2010 at 11:54am | IP Logged
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Oh also Dolors, something that has helped my son is looking at art - at how different artists draw/paint in very different ways, even ways when the colours are "wrong" or the eyes are in the "wrong" place, or it is just blobs and splashes etc. And we have also worked on a different style of art - so much as he loves very fine detailed things, we have looked at just using "blocks of colour" to indicate shape (I am sure there is a proper term for this - for example, in watercolours he would draw a person in black paint and then fill in while it was all still wet and just get an awful result, so we worked in watercolours and crayons in just putting colour in the right place and sort of right shape and how that would magically reveal a person or a tree or whatever he was drawing/painting.
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ekbell
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My oldest daughter was a bit behind in fine motor skills at that age as well and being the oldest she does tend to be a perfectionist.
We simply didn't do very many crafts for a while until her fine motor skills were up to the job. We did painting,playing with play doh, scribbling and the like instead.
When she started really wanting to make things that looked like things, I bought Ed Emberley's Picture Pie books which show how to make pictures out of shapes. At first I cut out the shapes and she glued them into a picture but later she started to trace and cut out the shapes herself. She really enjoyed this because she could make pictures that looked just she wanted them to.
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4Real Forums : Nurturing the Years of Wonder
Topic: expecting too much from my 5 yr old?
