Cave Art

Have you ever had a kid that you didn't know what they were interested in?  That you couldn't figure out what they wanted to learn about?  And neither can the kids?  I have one of those kids--Dyllan.  Dyllan is so easy going.  She just goes with the flow and doesn't express an interest in anything in particular. 

A few months ago I learned about a way to inspire kids--build off their sparks.  How do I do that if the child doesn't show a spark?!?!  Last month at my leadership education family builder meeting a friend mentioned how she follows Dianne Jeppson's idea using the Core Knowledge books.  I have thought that is was a great idea just not something that would work for my family, but that night I had an epiphany.  I felt that I could use those books with Dyllan to give her a place to start picking something that she was interested in.  I found What your First Grade needs to Know at the library and today I pulled the book out while working with Dyllan. 

She went right to the art section.  The first chapter in that section was about the first artists and their drawings.  These artist were the "cave men" that probably living during the ice age and their drawings were cave paintings.  We talked about what kinds of pictures they would draw and why.  There was an activity idea at the end of that part: get a cardboard box and pretend it's your cave and draw your own cave painting.  Dyllan was very excited to do this project.  I didn' have a box, but I had some large paper.  We taped it to the wall and she went to work.  While she drew I read some more from the book (in the History section) about the people that lived during the ice age.  Now maybe we can get a book about the ice age and learn a little bit more.  It was fun to see her get excited about something.