Kids Crafts: Color by Numbers Sticker Mosaic

When we were snowed in last December, one of the things that kept Ana busy for most part of the morning before Christmas was this Color by Numbers Sticker Mosaic Art kit she got as present from a dear friend of mine.

It is very much like paper mosaics, and I remember doing a few when I was little - with colored papers cut from magazines. Only, they've made it really easy for kids to do in this kit.

A pattern, like butterfly, is printed with little squares, and coded with numbers on them; each number is associated with a specific color; the kit comes with all the required materials, including the little colored foam stickers. All that needs to be done is read the legend that says, for example, 6=purple, then, look for all the little squares on the pattern paper with "6" and stick the pre-cut square foam purple stickers on them.

Since it was a new activity for Ana, I helped her get started, but, Oggie being more demanding, and needing my attention more than her, I could not help her much. Thankfully, it was Christmas holidays and we were snowed in, so, D could take over for a while to help her get the hang of it so she could continue on her own.

I did not expect Ana to complete it in one sitting as it is not as simple as it sounds - dexterity, coordination, matching the numbered squares and colors consistently, reading the legend for color codes all seem required for this activity... and these skills are typically well-established at about 5 years, and Ana was still 3¾, so, I was willing to suspend the activity if she showed signs of frustration...

Patience, is another important skill needed for this task; patience and sitting in one spot focusing on one thing for an extended period of time, which, developmentally, gets well established by five... which is probably why kids are enrolled in school for traditional formal education around that age - of course, that is why Montessori method is great from 3 onwards as it does not require the rigid rule of sitting at their desks awaiting instructions from their teacher... but, I am digressing...

Ana started off enthusiastically and once she got the hang of it, she went about it methodically. The squares were too small for her to be precise, but who cares?! She was busy, having fun, learning and happy :)

The repetitive humdrum nature of this fairly large project (for her age) did overwhelm her after a while and she appealed for help to finish up, not willing to set aside part-done work for another day that may never come.

To be honest, patience not being my strong suit, about half-way through I was strongly recommending that we save the rest of that piece for another day... and it is my laziness that we have only done two so far out of the five patterns in that kit - both times, Ana initiated the project - asked for it and wanted to do it - else, am not sure we'd have gotten even this far...

However, it is a great activity for kids. We can even make our own mosaics - just cut paper, draw a pattern and glue them on...