One of my all time favorite books of parenting wisdom is The Last Lecture. In it, Randy Pausch shares how his parents let him draw on his walls and decorate his room however he wanted. He credits them with allowing him to dream and fulfill his dream. He adds, “Anybody out there who is a parent, if your kids want to paint their bedrooms,as a favor to me, let them do it. It’ll be OK.”

I love this advice. After all what a great place, your own room, for a child to create and imagine!

8 Ways for Children to Decorate Their Rooms

1. Colors and theme
Pick a theme – or not. Then, pick the colors your child loves.

2. Paint
Decide what color you’ll paint the walls.

3. Comforter and sheets
This is the easiest one. Let your child pick out a comforter that matches his or her colors. Sheets, too.

4. Wall Decals
My kids love decorating with wall decals. They peel off easily and move around the room.

5. Furniture
Think bed frame, night table, bookshelf, desk and dresser.

6. Lamps
Lamps make great decorations.

7. Posters
Buy posters at the book store or book fair. Believe me – you can decorate completely with cute animal posters.

8. Artwork
Hang the child’s own artwork around the room.

Pick one or more of these categories and allow your child the freedom to imagine the possibilities.

Look on Pinterest, go shopping together, look through catalogues, and work side-by-side to facilitate your child’s unique creation (maybe not gorgeous?).

It’s okay if it’s not like you would do it. In fact, I can promise you it won’t be like you want. Let it go. Let it be.

“If you’re going to have childhood dreams you should have great parents who let you pursue them and express your creativity.” – Randy Pausch

Well said, don’t you think?

Photo credit: jessica wilson {jek in the box} / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

It’s cold outside so you need some fun inside ideas.

Channel your kids energy from flicking their food using a fork or spoon at their siblings into making an even better food flicking system. Because what they don’t know is they were making a simple machine –a catapult using a lever and fulcrum.

If they’ve played Angry Birds, they’ll understand the concepts more fully.

Ok, maybe not for food ir bird flicking but I bet your kids are up to the challenge of making their own catapults! Just replace the food with small toys or cotton balls.

Make a Catapult

1. Make a fulcrum – use an empty toilet paper roll or a rolled up and taped newspaper.

2. Make a lever – use a plastic spoon. Attach with a rubber band or tape.

3. Test.

4. Try substituting the plastic spoon with a stick with a glued-on plastic bottle lid or different silverware. See what happens.

Fun, right!?

This teaches kids about force, energy, simple machines and the scientific method.

What will your kids shoot with their catapult?

My kids and I made our own coloring books using our photos and photos from Google Images. It’s simple, free, and colorfully delicious fun.

Step by Step Photo to Coloring Page

1. Go to Be Funky.

2. Click “Get Started” and upload your photo from your computer.

If your kids, like mine, wanted to include Google images, have them search for those first, save in a special folder to use now.

3. On the left sidebar, click “Artsy” and select “Sketcher” and “Sketcher 2″.

4. Don’t click on print! Save to your desktop – you have to rename it twice for some weird reason. It will say error, but it does save it.

5. Open the file. Print!

You can use other photo editing programs besides Be Funky. Try one of these: Coloring Page Creator, iPiccy, orPixlr.

Have a coloriffic day and let us know how it goes!