Today, Ellie and I started work on the next resident in our tree. An owl, with a plan to follow up with more nocturnal animals like bats and…opossums? I don’t know. This is an organic process.
I got my inspiration from this preschool’s website. I strongly recommend that you hop over to that link and take a peek for craft ideas, inspiration or just to ogle at the preschool awesomeness. Even if you are a hard-core homeschooler, this place might just make you wish you lived in Kansas and could send your kid to this school. Really.
The teacher wrote that they did not give the kids any guidance, just gave them the pre-cut shapes and asked the kids to somehow use all the shapes to create an owl. You might want to go and check out the CUTE owls the kiddos in the school made, because they did a great job.
Now, I need to interrupt this owl craft post to explain that I AM A FIRSTBORN. I have a parenting book* that talks about the importance of birth order on personality. Let me just give you a few excerpts about firstborns:
“Eager first-time parents want to parent better than anyone ever did before, and so the firstborn becomes the victim of their inexperience, high hopes and enthusiasm.”
“Firstborns tend to be serious, conscientious, critical, perfectionistic, loyal, self-reliant and goal-oriented.”
Yes, I am a firstborn. Any other firstborns want to raise their hand?
Back to the owls….here’s a picture of the owl Ellie created:
And as much as I wish I had said, “Great! Let’s glue it together and put it in the tree!” That’s not what I did, because not only am I an eager first-time parent full of high hopes and enthusiasm, I am also a goal-oriented, perfectionistic firstborn.
I started by pulling out our book on birds from the library so we could compare the picture of an owl to the one Ellie made. This prompted Ellie to move the brown triangles down to the bottom to be feet.
Then I asked Ellie if owls have round noses. She said “no” but that she “loved the round nose”. Then she moved the yellow triangle under the chin to be a beard, “because it is a daddy owl”.
Then, worst of all, I decided to make my own owl. So I cut out all the shapes and glued them together the “right” way. After that I felt so horrible that I hid my owl and asked Ellie if she was ready to glue hers together. She was not fooled. She refused. Even when I offered the olive branch of letting her use the glue stick all by herself. I asked her how we would put it on the tree if we didn’t glue it. She said she wanted it to stay on the floor. Sigh. Major fail.
Oh, Ellie. You poor, poor thing. You are a firstborn too, my dear. A firstborn in the making, sadly.
Before things could be resolved we had to pick it all up because Abram—perhaps by the grace of God—woke up from his nap after only sleeping an hour.
So tomorrow I am going to try and apologize to my daughter and hopefully we can rebuild her owl and find him a place to live in our tree. I’m still not sure what approach I’m going to take. Retry the, “here’s the pieces, make an owl”, remake it from the picture I took, or have her work from my model. What to do? What to do? I just don’t know….(as you can see I’m still torn between my desire to foster free creativity and my firstborn nature that I just can’t shake)…
*Quotes taken from The Power of a Parent’s Words by H. Norman Wright
i love this.
i guess mom and dad have all stereotypical children, because i’ve always thought i fit the middle child syndrome to a T.
“Middle children are guaranteed to be opposite of their older sibling, but that difference can manifest in a variety of ways. Middle children often feel like their older brother gets all the glory while their younger sibling escapes all discipline. Because the middle child feels that the world pays him less attention, he tends to be secretive…Middle children may not feel they have a special place in the family so friends and peer groups become much more important. They can usually read people well, they are peacemakers who see all sides of a situation…”
I don’t know how many times I have cringed at a purple-faced Tinkerbell sporting a black moustache. Perhaps tomorrow Ellie will enjoy making a different woodland nocturnal craft- like a bat or possum or a moth, and then you can make up for the owl gaffe without her catching on to the fact that her owl was a bit post-modern. Did you see how creative and symetrical it was? She has an eye!
ha! i’m a first born too.
my hand is up.
glad you had a good owl time. : )
I feel the trap is that all parents want their children to do their best. You feel prideful and feel successful as a parent. Meredith is right. Let Ellie express with another nocturnal craft and the owl can reappear another time. Or when time is right, tell Ellie that an owl is smart and needs to be in the tree looking for Aunt Amanda. She is somewhere in the United States or would that be in Africa!
I am a firstborn too, and see those tendencies so often in myself! I am constantly having to refrain from re-doing things the kids do, whether it’s crafts, cleaning up, getting dressed, etc.