Question Box
Posted: March 3, 2014 Filed under: Art & Healing, Child Centered Activities 8 CommentsThe older I get, the less able I am to multitask. Or, perhaps it’s not age but hours of sleep I miss each night (see previous posting :). Either way, after tending to the household tasks, little ones’ needs, and work prep, by the end of the day I can only focus on one thing at a time.
It’s possible that this is in fact the time of day when my daughter’s charming curiousity cuts loose and needs the likes of Google-for-preschoolers to sate her questions: “Why do princesses have so many dresses? How did the creator create the world? Where did I come from?” Truth be told, there have been times I’ve just had to ask her to stop talking so I can finish the thought in my own head.
Several days ago I vented to our beloved Auntie Beth who, without blinking, offered up the idea of a Question Box – a special place to hold the question until I have time to give her the attention she seeks.
Using cardboard scraps and a glue gun, I constructed a small box with a piggy bank type slot on the top and a flap on the bottom to access the question cards.
Elena decorated the outside of the box with tissue papers and aluminum foil. While the glue dried, she furiously worked on index cards drawing symbols and letters to record her thoughts. 
Thankfully, collecting her questions in the box will allow me a little time to prepare my responses. “Why did the creator make bananas? Was that before the dinosaurs?” and “How does Peter Pan fly?”. I’ve got some research to do.
an Art Farm 
Hmmm…..what a good idea. Are you taking questions from others??
LOL!!! You bet!!!
BRILLIANT!!!!! did i say that loudly and clearly enough? i LOVE this. when my little guys were little we had a get-better box, filled with quiet activities for those days when fevers or spots keep you abed. when the sickness goes away, and the germs have moved on, part of the ritual was to take everything from the box (a compendium of natural wonders and simple paper and colored pencils, and a puzzle-y thing or two) out into the sunshine for a good airing out, and solar sanitizing. then back in the box, and back on the bedroom shelf, so if the blues arrived again, at least the box would be part of the healing ritual. i LOVE your use of the box. love the genius response to that end-of-day, oh-really-you’re-asking-me-NOW!?!?
i honestly think you should send this to one of the brilliant parenting magazines/sites. this needs broad distribution. in fact……if you could make en masse, it would be a brilliant addition to the parent-and-child marketplace (not that i like to think in those terms, but this just strikes me as wholly novel, and wholly needed.)
way to go, brilliant auntie beth!!!!
Isn’t this such a great idea? Thank goodness for Beth. The child’s voice is not lost. Thanks Auntie BaPs.
Love it! Grady is still very questioning at nine! Most center around monkeys!
That’s hysterical Ann 🙂
Oh I love this!
Such a great idea!! Nice to “see” you AB!