Harold and the Purple Crayon By: Crockett Johnson

Harold and the Purple Crayon is a story about being creative. It teaches kids that they can do anything they can imagine. Although there is no magical crayon that can build your dream house by simply drawing as you walk through the rooms, there is something that allows kids to escape reality and do anything they want. That is a life-long skill which we know as READING!

This past week when I visited the library for Homework Help I was given two girls that were working on a project for their class. The instructions were to build a 3D project that represented a specific Roman Goddess (which they were individually assigned in class). Although I didn’t have a magical crayon, I was able to use my understanding of 3D and 2D relationships and cut out cardboard to make cubes and stand-up hearts. I had so much fun teaching the girls how to use their creativity and understanding of shapes to complete their project. It was awesome to see how involved they were and to see how intrigued they were by the process of building the structures.

At the beginning I helped them plan out what they wanted the final project to look like. I think it is important to let kid’s imagination run before they are stifled by “that won’t work” or “do this not that”. Once they had their ideas down on paper I asked them questions like how do you think we could build this or where are we going to put that? This helped them to make the decisions and make them feel like it was their project which they had control over (which it is, of course).

Overall I really enjoyed working with them they were really willing to do the work and learn which makes the process so much more enjoyable. We are also beginning to form relationships with the students we are working with. That is also really neat to experience, they actually know your name and you know theirs and can follow their progress through the semester.

Imagination is a very important thing to have and it’s super important to let children express their creativity and imagination in many different fields. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a magical crayon but I’m sure kids imagine that they have one. 

The beginning of the Venus (Goddess of Love) project. This heart is 3D and can stand up on its own!

The girls colored different aspects of their projects. This is not the finished stage of the assignment