Doodlebug Dabblings: shrinky dink medallions

On the last day of camp for "Faniful Frolics" at North Vancouver Arts Council, I created a quick project to fill up some time. I did not think much of it when planning it, other than I knew every kid loves the magic of Shrinky Dinks, the clean up would be minimal and results instantaneous with no drying time involved.

What a shock it was to learn what a meaningful project it was through the children's eyes.

Each child created a medallion to wear either as a token of their imaginary world or a protection medallion to use while visiting their imaginary world.

They created a picture of something that symbolized their world and then used a black sharpie and colored pencil on the Shrinky Dink paper.

Then my 18 year old daughter, who helps me at the camp, cut a large hole in each of them with an Xacto knife, since we discovered the hole punch shrunk too small to get a piece of yarn through it.

As I expected, the kids LOVED watching their work shrink in the oven. You could not help but smile as the squeals of delight filled the room.

Thankfully they all finished creating their works at different times, so we could shrink the work in small groups that made the process very manageable.

And here is where the project took on a meaning that I could not of predicted in a million years.

As I began to put the medallions around the children's necks, I flippantly started "knighting" them.

"I place this medallion around the neck of "M" in honor of all the creative work she did this week showing us the magical world on the seashore. With this medallion, she is now an honorary citizen of Seashore World where she can spend her days swimming with goldfish".

The other children's eyes widened in delight.

The student's chest swelled as I put the medallion around her neck and spoke about her hard work, successes, and what I was most proud of what she accomplished during the week.

And the other kids could not wait for their turn to be "knighted".

There was such a pride in each of them as I spoke while placing the medallion around their neck. I quickly realized I could validate all the hard work, the moments during the week where they learned to keep going through difficulties or had done a particularly good job at problem solving, great attitudes, and all those other life skills you really want your kids to carry forward into adulthood. Not to mention the fact I could really compliment the beautiful artworks they had created!

Who knew a very simple, end of the day camp project could be so significant?

What started off as flippant wasn't so flippant after all and a good reminder to not forget what we say to children can have significant impact.

I'm going to guess for a lot of the kids, this turned out to be their favorite project of the week.

I know it quickly became one of mine.