Stay in the Lines

Children become discouraged by their lack of expertise if they are used to "coloring in" an adult's outline. For the Children's Sake, p.129.

I am eager to begin a study of art with my children and experience their creativity! How truly wonderful to allow them the room to express themselves with a pencil and piece of paper with out relying on lines to stay in leaving little or less creativity and possibly causing discouragement for the future. The thought of coloring pages has never occured to me before. Charlotte Mason discourages the use of these "creativity limitations" for children. I think that in handing our children coloring pages we are discouraging their minds to create and express itself in all of it's beautiful and magnificent capabilities, it is forced to hold back. I love to place a crisp white sheet of paper in front of my children and put an idea into their mind and then sit back and watch eagerly as they transform it into a collection of colors or just a few but there on that piece of paper no longer blank is the mind the creative beautiful images that were stored in the child. The blank paper gives him all the room to explore his own mind and express what he sees and feels and it never fails to be an amazing experience in the eyes of the teacher. I feel that I have missed out on many of these opportunities to allow for creativity to blossum in my children because of the ease of coloring pages.




Let the mind of the child express itself in its own original pictures!







*art from the little mind of Superman at age 4