Paint by Number

Today we tried out the painting by number packet I bought at the craft store.  I got one for my 6 year old that was labeled for 8 - 12 year olds and one for my 4 year old that was labeled 4 - 8 year olds.  They were excited and did have fun, but mainly I think because it was something new.  However, this activity was challenging for a few reasons.  My 6 year old didn't want to follow the coloring, but painted the picture the way he wanted.  This is fine, but I am almost inclined to just give him a blank sheet of paper and let him paint.  Also, the spaces for each color that you were to paint were VERY small, and there was a lot of paint mixing involved, like mix #1 color paint with the #5 color paint, and he just didn't have enough focus for that.  The 4 year old was actually trying to use the colors that were instructed, but again on his the spaces to paint were very small, and he was to mix many of the colors and that just wasn't going to happen.  I told him to just choose one of the colors when it called for 2.  They lasted about a half hour with this activity and then set it aside and said they would do more later.  I probably wouldn't get this again for them unless they convinced me that they enjoyed it more than it seemed that they did.

For dinner tonight we had stir-fry, and it is so easy.  I bought one of those stir fry packets from the asian section of the store, and followed the instructions on the back.  It tells you what veggies to get, but I just bought the ones I wanted, like broccoli, onion red pepper and mushroom.  Then I made rice for the side and dinner was ready!  So easy and it was delicious.