Memory Lane Art Shows for Kids

Do you collect your kids school papers and art? Does it go into bins where it gets bent, never gets sorted and you really know it will never get hung on the wall but just have a hard time letting it go?

I heard someone suggest once that they video tape their kids while growing up in the same place in the house once a month on one video so that over the years, the kids grows in fast time with just little snippets. I thought that was a great idea.

From that idea, I started to have my kids talk about their school work and art projects on video once a week so that we could then throw the papers away (we actually use them to start fires in the winter) and not have to collect and store tons of papers.

Each child gets a turn to show one item and then once they have all had a turn, we go through again. We had them show awards, play instruments they were learning at school, sing songs they had learned for programs and play the piano or do a dance.

One night, I was looking for a snippet of one of these "art shows" for a class I was teaching. One of my older girls and I spent hours looking for one that would be appropriate for my class. We laughed so hard watching the videos that we were crying and we woke another daughter who was in the basement which was far from us.

It was so funny to see the girls pretending to be news anchors talking about their art. Or, one picking their nose. Another runs out after taking a shower with no close on. Still another burps or shares from the other end. :-) I never imagined when we were taking the time to video them how much fun we would have watching them later. It was so cute to have them describe the craft or how they made it in their high little voices.

Not only do we have the "art" on video but we have the emotion and situation of the time captured as well. It also saves on space for those who don't have lots of storage and best of all it gave my girls pride and ownership in getting to show off their work, craft or talent.

We did keep a few notable pieces of art that were framed or will be at some point but in general it is enough to have it on film without keeping the bulk. I did my last one yesterday with stuff they entered in the fair for which they won ribbons.

Here is to your "memory lane" art show!