"But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart."
One day as newly weds, my husband and I were visiting my mother-in-laws cousin. She had three older kids and a young girl that was still in elementary school. As we sat on their couch in their family room I looked over at their bathroom door. It was plastered with pictures, drawing, paintings and other various papers taped all over the wall. I was a little shocked at the quantity of papers on the wall and that they let her tape them up there. I grew up in a house where nothing was ever displayed and use of tape on a wall was strictly forbidden. It is just a different approach. My mother put things into a file to keep for later and once I got married I got all my files from when I was a kid.
When I questioned this mom about the wall she said (and I am paraphrasing since I can't remember the exact words) that all too soon this stage would be gone and she didn't want to miss or forget anything.
Over the years I have listened to various parents talk about the things they loved from their child life and somewhere in my mind I shuffled those comments to think about later. This thought of displaying a childs art work has stuck really strong in my mind. I always imagined where I would do this in a home. When we bought our first, current home I found that the door to our storage room used to be an exterior door. Because it is steel, it is magnetic. I had Madalynn help me make some cute magnets as a project last year. I now have her put her artwork on the door and we take a weekly picture. I will post these pictures here as we take them. It depends on how heavy my work we is, but we change out the whole door every one or two weeks. This door is in a prominent spot in my home. Everyone that walks into our kitchen and each of my piano students and parents see this door as they are in my home. Lots of people comment to Madalynn about the work that she is doing, and it is motivating to my child to continue in this work.
In the book I am currently reading, Project-based Homeschooling. Mentoring Self-Directed Learners by Lori Pickert, the author explains that as children see their artwork displayed they know how much a parent cares about and values their work.
One of my favorite quotes in her book is,
"Think hard what you value most, because that's what deserves your attention.
Your child will respond by doing more of whatever earns your focus.
You feed a behavior with your attention, and by feeding it, you create more of it--
so be thoughtful about what you invest with that power."
Most of the things that I try and do with my kids stems from something I heard/saw before and think is important and will lead them down a road of creating strong thinkers/doers/creative personalities. Here is the door we are taking down from the two weeks leading to Halloween. They were very very busy ones for me and we didn't accomplish much for the wall, but we made lots of other memories instead.
Hope you enjoy.
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