My two year old just started going to room 9 at daycare. It is quite the promotion above the toddler room. He’s with the big kids now. Well, 2-3 year olds at least. One of the new activities that he gets to participate in is art time. And when I say art time, I don’t just mean a coloring page here or there. It is full blown art projects. With paints and glitter, and googley eyes. Art time, with 10 children under the age of 3? Those poor teachers.
After having my toddler doing art time for about a month now, I am beginning to question how much of the art he actually makes. I mean, look at those samples. Paint dots that are perfectly even, color inside of the lines, stamps that line up perfectly on the page. Pretty sure my two year old did not make these on his own. I mean, I have watched homeboy try to use a spoon and hit his hair on accident. His hair. That is not even close to his mouth. His coordination is not nearly advanced enough to produce such examples of fine motor control. In addition, I think the ability to have the paint color inside the lines is a little bit more of an advanced concept than his brain has the ability to process.
I love how evenly he dipped the sponge in paint and how he sorted the bugs by type.
Basically, when I get samples like this, it is the equivalent of a nuclear physicist writing a paper and putting my name on it. Actually, I probably understand more about nuclear physics than he does about coloring inside the lines. So, there are two options. Either his teachers hold his hand while he paints and colors, directing his every movement, or they do it for him while he does something else. The first option makes me cringe because it would basically involve wrestling my toddler and forcing his hand down into paint and then manhandling him so that he does perfect fingerprint spots on the paper. There is no way that he is willingly letting you paint with him. He barely lets me put on his socks without asserting his independence and free will (like for reals, I got kicked in the mouth this morning because I thought shoes would be a good idea). Option two is actually stranger to me because it means that my kid is playing with something else while an adult finger paints a picture of a snail. So really, how valuable is this “art time?” I would much rather have a scribbled on coloring sheet that I know my child actually made.
Look at the amazing understanding of painting inside the lines and using discrete color sections my toddler has.
But, daycare does not share my sentiment, so every day I bring home a new art that my toddler supposedly made. My fridge is covered with them. And my fridge is stainless steel so there is only a very small area that I can dedicate to his artwork. I have often contemplated throwing them away. I mean really, what am I saving them for? I know he didn’t make them. But I can’t bring myself to do it. Mommy guilt is that strong. So I keep them. In boxes overflowing with art made by his 22 year old teachers and one or two hand prints thrown in for good measure.
Motherhood 