Staying power

Tom has a tendency to lose interest quickly when we are doing craft projects, but I think I have finally discovered a craft activity in which Tom has more staying power than Lily. The Podlings were doing gluing at playgroup yesterday and Tom was mortified when he wasn't allowed to bring his project home (don't ask me why they weren't allowed them...maybe they have some grand plan for the pictures). I managed to discern that the project involved tissue paper, glue and clouds. At bedtime last night, I promised Tom we'd try and make our own tissue paper pictures today.
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Tom decided he wanted to do a picture with lots of colours, so I drew a couple of rainbows with clouds for the Podlings to stick their tissue paper to. Neither of them followed the picture, so it ended up being more of a 'free art' activity, but they both enjoyed it. Lily started to get rather frustrated with the tissue paper sticking to her fingers and, to my surprise, called it a day before Tom. He sat there happily tearing tissue and gluing for a quite some time after Lily finished. Tom is much happier doing free art than he is doing structured crafts, but I was still surprised how long this activity kept him engrossed. It's certainly something we'll do again.

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