Most Important Toy in a Child’s life
‘Our greatest natural resource is the minds of our children.’ — Walt Disney.
Every child has a natural inclination towards art. They like to paint their world with red, green, blue, yellow and other bright colors. Drawing, painting, art and craft are some of their core areas of interest. However, in the daily grind of school routines they get very little time for pursuing their creative interests. School, homework and activity classes take up most of their time, leaving no scope for play time. Though I am in favour of enrolling children for one or two activity classes in a week where they get to learn a new skill, I still cannot stress enough the importance of nurturing the natural artist in them.
One toy which can be a parent’s companion in nurturing creativity in a hassle-free way is the white or black board, which is called ‘Easel’ by fancy toy stores.
You will be amazed to see the creativity that children show when they get a big canvas in the form of an easily erasable board. My 2 year old son loves to scribble on the board I have gotten. On the other side, my daughter makes beautiful drawings or writes her love notes for me- it can be ‘I love you Mumma’ or ‘You are the best mom’. Her lovely innocent messages always cheer me up at the end of a long day at office.
Some of the main benefits of having a White/Black Board in kids’ rooms are –
1. Kids generally don’t keep things in their mind for too long. Having something like a whiteboard readily available gives them an instant platform to convey their feelings which would otherwise be forgotten in some corner of their minds.
2. Children in kindergarten generally feel bored of writing and practising their 3 letter words or short sentences in their books. However, doing the same thing on the board becomes a lot more fun. Whenever my daughter has to revise spellings of a new word family learnt at school, I prefer doing that on the board.
3. We spend endless hours in playing teacher- teacher at our home where obviously my daughter is the teacher and all other family members are her students.She is really a very strict teacher, and it gets even more interesting when her friends join us in the fun!
4. We recently started a new ritual related to reading. Whenever my daughter reads any story book, I ask her to draw the story on the board. Sometimes, I get goose bumps when I see her unique interpretation of the story, and it looks so good to see her give new life to stories through art.
5. I actually get to peep into her world through her drawings- how she like frilly frocks and pretty princesses living in huge castles with decked up queens.
6. White/black boards are very economical and promote a greener world. You don’t have to purchase new drawing books every time. We can preserve childrens’ beautiful creations on the board with a click of the camera. I save most such drawings without thinking of storage space.
Do you have an easel in your kid’s room? What does your child like to write or draw? I am looking forward to hearing your views on this.
Rashmi Sehgal is the mother of two adorable kids, 4 and 1-year-old fondly known as Angel and Lil Prince on her blog. She wears the dual hat of mother and IT Professional who juggles between work and kids trying to maintain balance between both worlds . She is a voracious reader , avid blogger , Shopaholic, love to experiment different way of learning and unlearning things with her daughter and take pleasure in reading books to her daughter. She writes at rashworld.wordpress.com