For those of you who have kids in daycare, you probably know that the daycare will sometimes leave some pictures for you that your child drew during the day. Now I am fine with this when the child is older and the picture has some sort of content (or at least, the child would be insulted by seeing the picture thrown in the trash), but it's a little more questionable when it comes to younger kids.
For that reason, I'm never particularly pleased when I see artwork left for me in my toddler's cubby. Occasionally, it's something really cool like a handprint. But more often it's something like this:
.JPG)
Yes, this is an
actual drawing that was left for me in my child's mailbox. Because I couldn't have lived without seeing this expression of her artistic ability.
.JPG)
I have a 17 month old and we get these every week or so - and love it! We also get a sheet with a comment for every day of the week on a highlight of their day. A bit repetitive at times, but we enjoy seeing it all the same. My wife even keeps the comments (we'll see how long that lasts) and we put the drawings up on the fridge.
ReplyDeleteI don't know... if you're putting drawings like that on your fridge, I doubt you have very much free space on your fridge...
DeleteIt kind of looks like a very tall person throwing a spring in the air.
ReplyDeleteIt also looks like the piece of paper could have been reused for at least a couple more drawings. Tree love.
Hahaha.
ReplyDeleteWell she definitely wrote a green 3 there.
I love it when our school partners with an art store and tries to sell us an overpriced frame for this stuff.
ReplyDeleteI think they just want to help us parents feel connected with our kids' days.
ReplyDeleteOur daycare does that (daughter 3) and I love it. She gets very proud to tell me about it, I have them hanging in her room and it makes her very happy to point out her paintings and drawings. It's really fun to have her tell me about it, then I'll quiz her a few days later about what the picture is off then, surprisingly it often stays the same.
ReplyDeleteWe have the same thing. In their eyes it is probably best to let the parent sort out what they want rather than risk the wrath of some parent who wants to save everything.
ReplyDeleteEach to their own. when mine were small I threw everything away, just kept the current week. I now have grandbabies and keep everything. I wish I had kept more with my children.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to seeing Dylan's (OMDG's baby) artistic efforts.
ReplyDeleteShe mostly just stabs the paper with the crayon at this point.
DeleteAt least she is not eating the crayons :-)
DeleteShe does that too.
DeleteI got overwhelmed with the sheer volume of these school projects and started taking photos and just keeping the digital record.
ReplyDeleteWhen she started telling stories about her pictures, I would write the story on the back... now THOSE were keepers for sure!!
I call this type of drawing "marks on paper" and think of them as the pre-cursor to writing. I would write the date on the back and your toddler's name on the front (top left corner) and let your toddler see what you are doing and talk about it. And doing the story about the drawing is just great. Props to your daycare for wanting to share your child's work with you.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't want to keep all the drawings you could keep, say, one per month or so as a record of progress.
I am pretty selective with the scribble art. Most go STRAIGHT in the trash while they aren't looking. I keep a few of the good ones on the fridge until the next batch comes. Very few actually get kept in a keepsake box---even those will likely be sorted & culled in a couple of years. I like seeing what they are up to, so I don't mind getting them, but I am certainly NOT going to keep them!
ReplyDeleteI read a nice idea about sending them to grandparents once (keep a few, send some to each set). Mine are still very young, I have a feeling it'll be harder to throw out pictures that actually look like or mean something...
Oh my!
ReplyDeleteMy husband was like that in the early years! We amassed shipping boxes full of this stuff! They make 'real' art when they go to school which takes up even more room! If we had kept it all, we would need (quite seriously) a 5th bedroom to store it!
Lighten up and soon! Vet every couple of months and be ruthless or you will be overwhelmed.
We did keep my daughter's description of her father's job though from daycare circa age 3: "He delivers papers". My husband is a lawyer!
We also kept (from daycare again) my son's description of his activities one weekend: "I was sick and my mommy put medicine up my bum!" (high fever, vomiting, so tylenol suppositories were utilized).
Both of these will be displayed at their weddings/graduation etc. naturally. :)