non-curriculum activities

Non-Curriculum Activities are Great for Kids

Non-curriculum activities done at school are good for kids and teachers alike. Fun class activities spark children's imaginations and individual creativity. Besides being unpressured and therefore more relaxing, creative-type classroom activities allow a child to make something they can be proud of — perhaps even give to a parent as a special gift.

At Really Good Stuff®, our primary featured collection for non-curriculum activities is the Ready-to-Decorate® series of posters. The posters come in a variety of themes, which students individualize with crayons, markers, paint, glitter glue, etc. A couple examples are the Ready-to-Decorate® All About Me Star Student and the Ready-to-Decorate® Kindness Counts. These literally ready-to-decorate posters come in packages of 24, and provide hours of creative fun for students ranging from pre-K through sixth grade.

Some of the Ready-to-Decorate® products require cutting out, or they are dimensional, like the Ready-to-Decorate® Doodle Birthday Glasses, Ready-to-Decorate® All About Me 3D Balloons and Ready-to-Decorate® About Me 3D Bees. Although these projects are non-curricular, they help develop children's fine motor skills, hand strength, creativity, self-expression and ability to plan. Coloring is also known to teach the brain to focus.

Advantages of Children Drawing/Coloring Themselves

Many of the Ready-to-Decorate® projects are geared towards students embellishing the poster or dimensional shape with information and pictures relating to themselves. This is a valuable way to start children off on the concept of healthy self-awareness. Some experts claim that when children draw or color pictures of themselves, they learn who they are, how they want to appear to others and what is important to them.

The Ready-to-Decorate® poster projects based on students depicting their own characteristics, homes and families are also an excellent way for students in a class to get to know each other. This works especially well at the beginning of a new school year, and it helps teachers to learn more about their students. In addition, Ready-to-Decorate® poster projects can be used in an at-home or distance learning situation by having children do this as one of their at-home activities, and then show and talk about their poster to the rest of the class.

With all these advantages, it seems as though Ready-to-Decorate® poster projects should be part of the classroom activities curriculum. But to kids, they're just plain fun.