Memories

With the kids back in school I finally got round to sorting the box full of the school 'stuff' they brought home at the end of last term.  The rule I implemented when we left AD with hundreds of half-used school books, is that you can keep as much school work and books and art and crafts and memories as you like, so long as it all fits in one 66 quart box (no idea what that is in litres). And when it's full, it's one piece in, one piece out.

These were the boxes before this year's school work went in:

Toots's box is already full
to overflowing

Tiger's is a respectable half-full

Lightning's work so far still fits in
his folder and is full of pre-school art

And this is Joey's.

Back in Texas, when Toots was in K3 and Tiger was in Mother's Day Out, I bought the cute little folders that Lightning has in his box.  Within two years the girls' folders were bursting with the art they brought home from pre-school and school - and I don't just mean scribbles, I mean recognisable examples of Monet and Matisse, and Thanksgiving, Christmas and Mother's Day laminated cards and posters, and a photo album per year.  By the time Toot's had finished First Grade - her third full year in a school in Texas - I'd moved from the folder to the box and it was already full.

Lightning never had any formal education in Texas, but even in Abu Dhabi where he completed half a year at nursery and a full year in pre-school, he brought home a glorious alphabet book from Teddy Bear nursery and loads of art work and photos and memories from BISAD.

Compare all this to Joe: the first - and only - significant piece of work he brought home from his school nursery here was 3 months after he arrived:

It's framed, cos it's literally all
I've got to put on the wall

And I know, I know, that a lot of that has to do with the child's personality - my boys were clearly not drawn to art and colouring when they toddlers, especially compared to their sisters who could sit for hours and entertain themselves with a single box of crayons, and could produce a recognisable Disney castle and Minnie and Mickey at age three.  But, I definitely noticed a difference in Lightning when he started nursery and was encouraged to draw and create along with the rest of his class, and as a result he was far more inclined to do it at home and off his own back. 

I know some of it also has to do with the opportunities the kids got - had Joey attended a Mother's Day Out class like Tiger did, or a nursery class in Abu Dhabi like Lightning, then he'd definitely have produced some keepers.  But circumstance meant he never attended either and in the end had only eight months of formal 'pre-school' in his first four and a half years, but honestly, I have no evidence that Joey was ever encouraged to even hold a pen during the time he was in nursery here in Scotland.  And like I said, I know it also has to do with personality, and I'm all for kids being encouraged to find their own way of being creative, but there is definitely also something to be said for the whole class creating something together, be that a simple Mother's Day card, or a Christmas ornament, or a paper lantern to celebrate the Chinese New Year.  You know?

Anyway, even after P1 when there was a touch more of that, I still only have about five completed writing and maths jotters and a handful of artwork.  Toots on the other hand is going to have some serious culling to do...!