But what on earth does anyone actually do with them?
A friend of mine gets tired of having stickers attached to various parts of her body by her small daughter. My kids generally put them on the backs of their hands but that doesn't last long. Stickers are so fun and creative, there's got to be more you can do with them than that. Perhaps older children incorporate them in to card-making or something...
We had the idea recently of using stickers as part of our drawing; sticking them on paper and using them to inspire some colouring in. I got in to it way more than my kids (you can see my masterpiece below) but it still entertained them a for a brief while.
What do you do with your stickers? Well, what do your kids do? Have you got any good ideas for us? How do we unlock their full potential?!
I've been pondering this for a while... I don't have any really creative ideas, but thought I'd scribble down my observations/thoughts:
ReplyDeleteMy two love stickers; I hate them, I've decided (the stickers, not the kids that is!) but we don't really know what to do with them either. They both like sticking them to themselves and each other (and me, when my guard is down). Otherwise, we occasionally use them to make collage-style pictures (that sounds grander than it is - they just stick a load of them onto a piece of card and declare it a picture; my anti-drawing son is particularly keen on this!). Other children their age seem to enjoy this too - I got a load for my son's fourth birthday party and all the guests had great fun sticking them onto paper bags to take home as party bags. At playgroup the craft table is regularly a cardboard cut-out shape of some sort with appropriately themed stickers to stick on, which sounds a bit tedious, but the children do really seem to enjoy it, and find it much easier than tackling glue (which invariably never sticks properly..._. I had a visit this week from my big sister and her children, who are slightly older than mine, and they made much more deliberate use of some stickers to create proper scenes that they elaborated with pens and crayons - and used some of the letter stickers to write out a heading or greeting... so perhaps it is something they get the hang of more when they get older.
I can swallow my dislike of stickers when they come as part of magazines or sticker books where the children have to match them to the appropriate gap or silhouette or use them somehow to complete a task - I can see the value in that, so don't hate those ones quite so much (until they get stuck to clothes - particularly socks or knitted jumpers - and clog up my washing machine, grrrr!) Oh and, slightly more convoluted, but my daughter has recently got into doing sticker mosaic kits, where she has to match stickers to the colours and shapes printed on the board, which she loves doing and is totally delighted with her finished creations.
Sorry - that wasn't much help at all really, was it?! Hopefully somebody out there has some more inspired ideas!
Ha! Great idea for the party bags, and it sounds like your sister's kids do a more sophisticated version of our idea so perhaps we're on to something. And I promise I will never give your kids a sheet of stickers ever!
DeleteOh dear, I do sound terribly ungrateful, don't I?! TKR actually gave them both a lovely sheet of NZ stickers each on her last visit, which they have proudly used to decorate items of furniture in their bedrooms, and they look great! (And don't get stuck to my socks, which is always a bonus!)
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