create (with kids): hot gluing

Here's the thing about our daughter, she wants to make things. She loves the process, but she wants a final product. Sometimes she'll humor me with some busy-bag'ing, or she'll get entranced with sorting buttons, but often lately she wants to know, "What am I making?" And that's when I realize, again, that this girl needs paint and clay and tools. She gets it honest. She has a whole lineage of "do-it" ladies in her blood- including my grandmother who was still climbing up and fixing her own roof not that long ago. So I realized it was time to break out the glue gun, much to Isia's delight!

First we tied her hair back, then we examined the glue gun and I explained how it worked. How the metal tip melts glue as it's pushed through with the trigger. Then we discussed safety, and how the metal tip that's hot enough to melt glue can also burn our finger. And then she got to try it out for herself...

...and quietly concentrated on putting hot glue onto the paper. At first we didn't glue anything onto the paper, I just gave her space to explore and get comfortable with using the glue gun. Then I pulled out some aluminum muffin cups and she began gluing those down. 

You might recognize this as one of her textured finger paintings, here. I love creating on top of old artworks! She's been so proud of it since finishing, showing it all of our friends that stop by. Very seriously she'll say, "but you can't touch the hot glue- it will burn you." (Which goes to show, again, that those little ears can listen when they want to, ha!) In all seriousness, though, this was a good step in the right direction for us. As she continues to desire to be big, and all the autonomy that comes with it, I need to push myself to provide her opportunities like these. She's just growing up so quickly these days, right before my eyes honestly. I've read somewhere that "the days are long, but the years are short." Yes, very short indeed.