Individuality... the Wednesday group

I've resumed my kids' art classes.  ANd I am trying to infuse some of the leadership principles I've been learning into the lives of these precious kids. 

The first week, we talked about individuality, uniquesness, and creativity.

We discussed the uniqueness of our fingerprints, and how they are totally different than anyone else's.  They are UNIQUE, just like us.

and since this was our first class, so we used our creativity to make our funky nametags which we actually wear every week.

The kids in the class are new to me and to each other, so the nametags are really helpful in helping us make new friends.

We eventually made our way out to the cottage where we talked about our individuality as we learned more about each other through a color chosen earlier in the class.

While some finished up their nametags, others were taking their turns at the Spin Art machine.  And still others were making some fun shapes with the leftover clay used for our thumbprints.

Since I'd recently been to the One Direction movie, I DID know who Niall was!  DO you?!

As each kid went to take his/ her turn at the Spin Art machine, they were asked "If I only let you choose ONE color to use on this project, which one would you choose?!".  THen, I told them to remember that color, as we'd be discussing it later.

Miss Emery is helping me teach the classes.  I DEFINITELY need a little helper to wrangle all these young uns!!

This is sweet Gracie.

And Tatum and Caroline.

This class has four boys in it, so we have some pretend sword fighting, wresting, etc to battle through amongst our artwork!  ha.  it's just part of it, I suppose.

In the foreground is Rilee.  She is really, really into art! 

And Miss Avery is taking for the first time.  I think it's safe to say she is liking it a lot.

Caroline is a first timer too.  And she L.O.V.E.S art!!  I look forward to many more years, to be honest, because I think that even if Miss Caroline had to  give up on all other "extra curricular" activities she'd stick with art!  I love that about her!

We talked in the cottage about how each of them had chosen a particular color that they felt was "special" to them.  I had all the details about each color handy to discuss...

for instance, purple was dreamy, visionary, royal.... (like Rapunzel)
Blue was friendly, sweet, kind.... (Cinderella)
Red was daring, adventurous, brave.... (Tarzan)

I'd call out a color and ask each one to raise their hands when it was their color of choice, and then we'd talk about the characteristics of that color choice.

to help the kids "relate" to their color, we also assigned a hero or heroine to each color so they could sort of understand why they are like. 

For example, red is like Mulan... she is brave and daring.  whereas, blue was more like Cinderella.  She was sweet and kind and friendly.  Aurora is that way too!

They seemed to relate to these fictional characters. 

One of the main principles of personal growth is "You have to know yourself to grow yourself".  I thought it'd be really cool to start helping kids "know themselves" and their individual strengths at a very young age. 

and then each week, we are building our knowledge of character strengths to make us better citizens and family members.

Our strengths are unique to us.  As unique as our fingerprints. 

And we all have the capacity to create something uniquely... with our strengths!

That includes each of you, in fact!  What are you doing with your own strengths?!

Are you using your gifts?  God expects us to use that which has been gifted and entrusted to us.

Do you know your strengths?  Wanna know a good place to start?!  Order the book Strengthfinder 2.0 .  I have every one of my employees take this test.  IN fact, I have some take it prior to even being interviewed.  I like to know each person's unique set of strengths/ gifts he is bringing to MMPT and where they can be placed and how they can be used to best benefit the entire team.

I am trying to pay attention to my baby girls' strengths too.  I hope to help them recognize these early and use their energy in their area of passion, as that is typically when we are the most joyful and feel the least resistance.

I hope to let you follow along while the class moves through our "super powers", "what's special about our families", "gratitude", "values", "being a good citizen",... etc.  I love working with these young lives.  So fun to see them soak up this information while creating works of art that they are clearly so proud of! 

What are your gifts, and how are you using them?!

MO