Payton is great at all things academic. Art though, is his Achilles heel. Not good at it, and not interested in doing it. At our parent teacher conferences, his teacher says that in Kindergarten they tend to focus a lot on coloring, and she was worried about Payton growing frustrated. She said we should practice more at home.

Well, in order to practice, we had to make a rule... no Wii/Computer games until one picture is completed. Today was the first day that rule was in effect. So he begrudgingly colors a picture from a coloring book. I say "Payton, you should try to stay within the lines" (although the artist in me screams YOU DON'T HAVE TO STAY IN THE LINES)

He says, "Sometimes I get confused by the lines." Then he says "OH! I should connect these-" (meaning the confetti). So he draws lines to connect them. I have a light bulb go off, and ask if he'd like to try a dot to dot. He said he had never done one before, but was excited because there were numbers involved.

The difference was ASTONISHING to me. So then I ask if he wants me to make him one where he can count by 3's. (3 is his favorite # to count by and he can count well past 102). He said, no can you make it 4's so it would be a challenge (He's not as good at counting by 4's). So I oblige. You can't see the numbers probably but I made this in photo shop and did numbers from 4-188 counting by 4's.

This is Princess Peach from the Super Mario Bros. series of games. He has already asked for more... so I think I made a breakthrough with him and art, just at the time I was feeling most helpless.