Northern Lights Art

Recently, I got the chance to go to my 6 year old daughter E’s elementary school. I love going because she gets so excited that I am volunteering there. She always has such a big smile on her face and that is motivation enough to show up. I also love seeing how she interacts with the other kids in class and how she does in her art sessions.

This art session was focused on the Northern Lights. The kids got water colors to paint strips of colors up and down the page. Then they needed to cut mountains out of black construction paper and glue it to the bottom of the page. It seemed simple enough and E ended up completing the project fairly quickly. She loves art and I could see how motivated she was to make it her own.

I ended up floating around the class and helping some of the other kids around. One particular kid had trouble cutting out the mountains and ended up cutting through the black construction paper so the mountains didn’t stick together. She was really sad about it and I gave her another piece to start over along with some encouraging words. A few minutes later, the same thing happened and she put her head down on her desk. Tears started flowing and I went over there to talk to her. After the quick pep talk, another kid gave a set of mountains to her and she used it to complete the project.

I ended up checking on the girl right before I left and told her she did great because she tried her best. She didn’t really give me any eye contact because she was shy, but hopefully she isn’t too down about it. I usually try to help out as best as I can when I see something or someone with an issue. Because I model the behavior (mostly), E tries to do the same in her class. She is constantly buzzing around when she is done and helping out as best as she can. E was a big helper during the activity and during cleanup and I’m glad some goodness is rubbing off on her. They really are such a sponge and absorb the good and the bad that we put out there. It’s in our best interest as parents to show the good, the bad, and how the bad gets fixed. Hopefully many many cycles of this will yield the right learnings so kids can grow up with the tools to navigate this complicated world with a little more empathy and encouragement.