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I have always loved to draw and make things. I love writing and illustrating stories in my children’s books, whether it is the sounds a truck or train makes, or how a giant makes all the wrapping paper for Santa. Even when making a piece of fine art, the picture has to have a story or it will not work for me as an artist. I also have the great fortune to be a Pre-K teacher for a class of 4 and 5 year olds. I tell stories to the class almost everyday. At one point I was just a storyteller for a school and visited 10 classrooms sharing different stories with each of them. One class loved the story of Hansel and Gretel and would ask me to tell it over and over again.
As an illustrator and “maker of things,” I one day saw two pieces of wood in my workshop that were the same size and so I decided to carve Hansel and Gretel. I brought the two tiny figures to the class and told the story acting it out with the small wooden characters I had carved and painted. After I finished the story, the children asked, “Where is the witch, and the cottage, and the father?” I went home that night and carved all the other characters and props I needed for the story. I found a wooden box to put them in and painted a “title” on the box like a cover to a story book and storyboxes were born!
I went on to making a total of 13 boxes, telling them to children in schools, libraries and museums everywhere. Guidcraft approached me and asked to recreate the storyboxes so other teachers, parents and kids could use them to tell stories. I was excited to work with them because I had used their products in my classroom for years and was aware of the quality that they put into everything they make. Guidecraft made casts from each of my hand carved figures so they look exactly like the figures and props that I use.
Storytelling is such a great thing to share with a child. For my storyboxes to be in other classrooms where other teachers can make them their own and add their own ideas to them is what the oral tradition of storytelling is all about. When I tell a storybox in my classroom, I see my pupils adding narratives to their block play and making their own storyboxes out of paper. Telling a story to a child shares that love that leads to them wanting to read and write. I am so thrilled to be able to share my passion for storytelling with even more children now that my storyboxes will be available. There is an old proverb that says: People need stories more than bread, stories show them how to live and why.

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Today you're cordially invited to my daughter's virtual coloring fashion show, a glitzy extravaganza showcasing the new Rosie Flo's Fashion Show Pop-up Coloring Runway Set. My daughter has worked hard and long to ready her fabulous models and spectators for the show.

Rosie Flo's Fashion Show is a box gift set published by Chronicle Books that contains a ready-to-assemble paper theater and catwalk along with 18 paper models, 8 front-row spectators and a little poodle for kids to color and personalize. There are also pop-up chairs for the front-row spectators, little invitations to pass out and a paper camera to set up at the show. Instead of designing dresses, kids get to complete the character line drawings, a sort of "filling-in-a-person" drawing activity. Like all Rosie Flo products many line drawing dresses are ready for a creative mind to take over and add heads, faces, legs, arms and all the extra flourishes. Kids get creative by making up their own characters to fit the costumes.

The pop-up theater is impressively detailed, both inside and out. Models "get-ready" at the outside back of the theater in a dressing room and then enter through the doors onto the catwalk. No glue or scissors is required and the theater itself isn't too hard to assemble though smaller kids will probably need some assistance. According to the outside of the box, this set is recommended for ages six and up but with parental help I imagine younger kids would also enjoy coloring and creating the models.

My artsy daughter has already spent several hours drawing and coloring the models and spectators in her set and still has several more models to color. I asked what she likes most about this product and she replied that, "It is better than a coloring book because when you are done coloring you can play with it. It is hard work but a lot of fun because you get to draw people."

No need to buy a train tunnel when you have stacks of books readily available in your home! Choo! Choo!


Find more of this week's Wordless Wednesday (or Wordful) posts at 5 Minutes for Mom.

Exploration through tactile play is an important part of childhood. My kids especially love it when I bring out the play dough. They roll and shape it into interesting forms and like the way it feels when they squish and knead it between their fingers. Playing with dough improves motor skills and encourages creativity.

Recently, thanks to an opportunity provided by Team Mom, we had the chance to try a new kind of moldable dough called Moon Dough. It is a very lightweight, dry and crumbly dough that easily compresses into shapes. And, according to the manufacturer, it never dries out, is hypo-allergenic, and is wheat-free.

We received the Moon Dough Barn product to test and review. The large plastic barn is actually a crank driven toy that molds the dough into four different animal shapes: cow, sheep, horse or chicken. The barn requires some minor assembly before kids can play with it.

Besides the main barn pieces, the set comes with the following items:
3 packages of Colored Moon Dough, Removable Barn Silo, Fence Mold, Hale Bale Mold, Small Play Mat, Instruction Guide

The lightweight dough is a very different product to work with than your typical play dough and feels really interesting to squish and compress. My kids had fun trying to form the Moon Dough into balls, placing it into the hay and bale molds and liked crumbling it into bits. They also really, really enjoyed pressing the dough into the top compartment of the barn and turning the crank to create the various animals one by one. Oftentimes they were in such a hurry to make an animal that they didn't put enough dough into the mold compartment and didn't fully compress it before cranking so they would end up with half-formed animals.

This is a fairly messy activity so I decided to let the kids play with the dough outside to simplify clean up. The dough does end up everywhere because it is so lightweight and it tracks easily. I think that adult supervision is necessary for kids who use this product. Care needs to be taken if you don't want the different dough colors to mix. In my opinion the play mat is a little on the small size (the manufacturer suggests covering the play surface with a plastic sheet or disposable table cloth). If my kids played with in indoors, I think I'd invest in a shallow tub to help contain the play.