I have a lot of ideas, and sometimes they even work out. We went with a couple of friends to the Brooklyn Museum, with two toddlers in tow (see, now wouldn’t that be a good title for a blog?). I had purchased for each of them an artist sketchpad and some colored pencils. Instead of ‘kid’ paper, I went with a couple of good sketch pads, and some good Crayola color sticks. The pads beat out just paper, because they lay flat, they’re heavy enough to require attention to carrying them, and the texture is good. The color sticks are just colored pencils without the wood. I thought they’d be messy, and I was a bit put-off by the non-washable warning, but they seem to be not at all messy. And they have good texture on the pads. I also got some stickers, and some sculpting clay, but we ended up just with the pads, pencils, and a bit of hot sticker action.
And so we headed off to see this gorgeous exhibit.
As we suspected, the kids wanted to touch all the art, which made it a little bit of a pain to try to keep tabs on them. Also, the helpful ipads that the museum leaves around for people to learn about the art? Yeah, toddlers like these things, and they will produce insta-fights over who gets to use it and for how long. That said, the pads were still a wild success:
We just sidled up to the art, and plunked down the pad with the pencils. I tried to do a little bit of “What colors do you see? Red? Wow! Do you want to draw something in red, too?” to some (but only limited) effect. The kids just loved the drawing, and while I’m not convinced that they’re taking inspiration from the art or anything like that, I do think that the idea that someone made this, and that someone could be you! is an awesome attitude. Plus, if you are seeking some external validation of your parenting, via other people telling you how cute your children are, this will pretty much do it.
Brooklyn Dad 