My Mission

As a former teacher, I help the parents of our current little ones prepare to thrive in Preschool, Kindergarten (and school beyond) by understanding the key role scribbling and drawing plays in child development! 

The Preschool Book 

I have literally taught hundreds and hundreds of Kindergarteners, along with thousands of children ages 4 – 13 who’ve been in my classroom. I’ve seen them in 14 schools in Texas, Washington, and California. I’ve observed some universal truths about kids, whether they’ve been urban, rural, inner city, public or private school, homeschooled or homeless. Little humans go through definite stages of mark-making.

 From shepherding that many kids during their prime development years, I have definitely come to many conclusions about what kids need. And that’s across five generations!

I felt it would help parents and caregivers of very small ones to know some of this BEFORE their kids arrive at school. By then, it’s too late for school to make some of this up. Kids need more mark-making, not less! But what has happened instead? Administrators have taken away more and more art time even from Kindergarteners in favor of writing. Having to put the cart before the horse, forcing little kids to do something they aren’t ready for, flies in the face of child development. It doesn’t matter how much we wish differently.

Basically, I think parents need reassurance that it’s good for kids to spend hours coloring, to avoid electronics at this age as a “teaching” tool. Crayons are the teaching tool they need! So that’s why I wrote this book. Children need to create their own worlds rather than spending hours in a flat digital world created by adults.

When I taught in a San Jose, CA elementary school, I heard of a nearby school where the parents asked that the kids NOT have any digital teaching at school. This was in the heart of Silicone Valley. The sentiment was that the kids would pick up electronics easily enough – the parents wanted school-to-be-school. I loved that, but never had time to get over there to check it out.

I remember asking the “experts” what to expect when Gen Z entered school – the first digital native generation to go through our schools. They said we’d find out! We did! The i-Pad was only invented in 2010, just 12 years ago. And it really has changed the younger students of that generation. Wow, teaching Kindergartners on Zoom through the Pandemic – little kids totally adept at learning through the screen!

And now Gen-Alpha, our youngest ones entering school, are introduced to handheld electronics as babies. Where are the hours of coloring? Sure, we Boomer kids watched TV. But we colored and did other stuff, too – like playing outside because our moms kicked us out of the house for the day!

One of things I’ve found concerning as a side effect of devices-in-hand, instead of pencils-in-hand, has been the lack of fine motor skill development in more and more boys. This shows up in middle school when they are so crippled in their handwriting…which should have developed after drawing their way naturally to it. They lack fluidity and maturity in their handwriting and artwork. I’ve heard it argued that it doesn’t matter, they’ll use computers to do the work. I think that misses the point of childhood development and excuses something that isn’t considered important. My sadness for them is if it keeps them from going into careers that they might have gravitated toward like architecture.  

 In the second half of the book, I let you know what’s coming ahead for your child in the years after the primary grades throughout the school experience. It may cause you to examine your own education and feelings regarding your relationship to art in a new light, too. If you can understand what happened, then you can see that your aren’t uncreative or not artistic. Too many adults feel stuck. See, it does have an impact!