Joshua's Art Project

For those of you who know Joshua, you know that he hates drawing pictures. He would rather practice and perfect his printing skills over and over again than sit down and draw a cute little picture of a house. If you want him to draw a picture of a house, you basically have to tell him or show him a square and triangle.

So you would imagine my surprise when on the kitchen table I found this abandoned piece of paper. It was definitely crafted by Joshua. He has those signature people at the bottom with the big coloured-in ears. I asked him "What is this a picture of?" and he said "Joshua eating a cookie, Joshua eating cake, Joshua eating ice cream." (So that's what that circle and upside down triangle is) Wow, you can tell we like to eat a lot of those things around here :) Of course on the back of the paper he had written "cookie" "ice cream" "cake" and "jayhawks." I knew he just HAD to write something somewhere. Hooray for Joshua! I guess next time I want you to draw a picture, I should just ask you to draw food!!!


One of our favourite family games right now is "Guess Who." I found it at a garage sale the other day for $2 and got nostalgic. The kids love it. And they're both really good at thinking up questions like, "Does your person have brown hair?" all on their own. The best part is that it forces Joshua to actually listen and RESPOND to Whitney. He listens to me and Steve just fine, but often he just ignores Whitney and drives her crazy. Now, he listens to her question, looks at the card, and says, "No Whitney, no brown hair." It's great! So if you want a game that encourages sibling cooperation, give Guess Who a try!

P.S. I bought the old school version of Guess Who. I looked online, and they now have an ethnically-diverse version. I'm all about encouraging my kids to accept and embrace ethnic diversity (I bought Whitney an African American baby doll when she asked me why some people are chocolate) I just don't know if I want my kids asking, "Whitney does your person have brown skin?" or "Joshua, does your person have yellow skin?" Aren't we trying to get our kids to look past skin colour?