Colour and impermanence

I've really been enjoying spending some one on one time with each of my kids lately. It's seems to happen more often since Peace and I split up.

This morning Tama was with Peace and Rain was happily reading so Tui and I played with some paint.

I had to take some pics because the vibrant colours of the paint were so beautiful. Our paints were limited to red, blue, yellow and white so we mixed some to make more colours.

It was awesome to watch Tuis face as she mixed the paints together and saw new colours appearing. And to hear her exclamations of "Oooh, it's making pink!!!" or orange or green.

Once the paints were suitably mixed we pressed a piece of paper on to the plate to preserve the pattern.

At this stage I relinquished all control (well, I didn't really have any agenda anyway, except to play with paint) and Tui started to really play.

She mixed and smeared and spread, getting her hands and feet into the action.

The paint felt nice and soft and smooth.

After washing her dress Tui then climbed into the tub of warm water and enjoyed a bath in the garden in the winter Sun.

All we were left with from our "Art" was a plate of brown paint with marigold flowers sprinkled over it. Even the piece of paper with the print had become a big brown smudge.

Often after doing art with the kids we have nothing to show for it. It doesn't worry me at all. The point of the exercise is to have fun, not to necessarily create something. Today Tui explored colours and the texture of paint, from which she'll have gained so much more than from a controlled Kindy craft project, made out of pre-cut shapes glued onto paper that is similar to the one every other kid in Kindy has made.

As well as the lesson in colours I think there is a big lesson for kids to learn about impermanence. The Buddhists see the beauty of this. I once watched some monks make a sand mandala that took many, many hours and then it was blown away.

It's a pity that more people don't recognise that the lesson is the learning not the results. The board of studies don't get this when they demand 'evidence' of homeschooling. It is not the paper you save with things that the kids have done that shows what they have learnt and what they know, it is their experience of the world around them. And that kind of knowledge can not be saved on paper.