My boyfriend and I had a chat the other night about the things we did when we were children on bad weather days. We dated at school 25 years ago and were both fitness freaks, so staying indoors on these days was like a punishment. On those days we both enjoyed one activity in particular, colouring in! In a world that now seems to be technologically based, colouring in seems to be an archaic activity, but, allowing 24 hour access to the Wii, the X-Box and becoming embroiled in our on-line world at such a young age, doesn’t appeal to me as a suitable activity to for the young mind either.
Any age can enjoy colouring in. My 6 year old stepson enjoys colouring in cartoon characters. My 10 year old stepson enjoys colouring in more boyish subjects like war themes and space pictures. Most importantly, there is a ready supply of a number of themes that can easily be printed off from the internet as and when required. The best website I’ve found is http://www.familycorner.com/dir/Family/Kids/Coloring_Pages/. They also have a number of colour-by-numbers pages and dot-to-dots you can print off too.
The only real expense involved is purchasing some felt-tip pens and pencils, both of which are available relatively cheaply from a variety of sources. My boyfriend and I went to Hobby Craft yesterday and managed to get 36pc sets of both for less than a fiver!
I may sound like an old woman, but my view is that most children today will spend much of their time as adults sat in front of computer screens! Saving them from this for at least some of the time now seems like a good idea to me. Their young eyes are just developing and I worry that an endless stream of pixels in front of their eyes could cause some damage later in life.
If you agree with this, why not visit the familycorner.com today and get your kids some colouring in to do, if like me, it is another rainy/snowy day where you live.
Thanks for your time,
Di xxx
Filed under: Arts & Crafts
