Both of my boys made a goal at their last Parent Teacher Conferences to practice opinion and story writing more at home. We obviously do lots of arts and crafts in our home but truth be told, sometimes that creates a lack of practicing our writing skills. After reading If You Were a Parrot by Katherine Rawson, I knew it was a perfect opportunity to not only practice writing, but also to try out some awesome new art supplies we recently received from Tombow.
In case you missed yesterday’s post, after reading the story, we started by pretending to be parrots with our Parrot Beaks.
After several hours of playing, my boys sat down with some paper and a pencil and finished the writing prompt: “If I were a parrot, I would…” Since they openly talked about their different ideas, they kind of fed off of each other in their responses.
Luke, Kindergarten
“If I were a parrot I would climb on the curtains and the house because a crocodile was trying to get me.” Having not helped him spell anything, I was so proud of him, especially since he spelt all of his sight words correctly that we’ve been working on.
Andrew, 2nd Grade
My boys were obviously fascinated by how well a parrot is able to climb with their cool feet. I loved how Andy recognized that parrots could be in danger to large, predator birds.
My boys favorite part was getting to re-create their writing in art form using products from Tombow. Tombow has been creating high quality products for the past 100 years for artists and we were fortunate to be able to try their Stamp Runner Dot Adhesive, Deep Tone Color Pencils, and Dual Brush Pens.
Since both of my boys’ had a house in their writing, they started by using scrap paper shapes (a rectangle and triangle) to make a house on their paper. They glued it on to their paper using the Dot Adhesive Runner Stamp. Can I just tell you how much I LOVE this product!! My boys were able to use it easily on their own and it was mess free. Can’t beat that!
After gluing their houses on their paper, they used the Color Pencils and Pens to finish their artwork based on their writing prompt.
Luke, Kindergarten
“If I were a parrot, I would climb on the curtains and house because a crocodile was trying to get me.”
When he explained his drawing to me he told me that he decided to have his friend Ethan as a parrot too, and they were throwing rocks at the crocodiles to try to get them away.
Andrew, 2nd Grade
“If I were a parrot, I would climb the dog kennel, then I would fly away to the top of the house because an Eagle was trying to get me.”
Andy preferred the markers over the color pencils and he mentioned how much he loved that the markers had a fine tip side to add smaller details and a bigger brush side to fill in larger areas like his tree.
I was really impressed with the Tombow products we used today. They aren’t your regular run of the mill products. It’s evident that they take pride in providing HIGH QUALITY products for artists. My mother-in-law is an artist and often gets frustrated while using colored pencils with my children because of how cheap they can be. I can’t wait for her to come up and try out these color pencils from Tombow. From their deep tones, to the quality of pencil, they are really impressive!
I’m super excited to share with you that along with my children’s participation in “Tombow Time” Tombow will be making a $100 product donation to the Council for Arts Education as part of their “100 Days of Tombow” Program! We love creating art in our home and love programs that help children around the Country be able to participate in art-centered activities using safe, non-toxic materials. Thank you Tombow!!
What a fun post….