One person’s junk may be another person’s treasure, but when it comes to kids everything is treasure. Collecting “treasures” found when camping is a valuable kindergarten readiness activity. To start, kids practice paying attention to what they see and learn to search for their particular items. They check the characteristics of things they find to see if they would match their collection items or not. Sometimes, kids have to make choices among objects because they can not collect it all. Vocabulary, explaining, organizing, displaying, counting, categorizing, grouping, etc are just some of the readiness for kindergarten skills that kids develop.
Kids may collect rocks, shells, driftwood, sticks, wrappers, shiny foil and practically anything you can think of. When it comes to storing their collections a shoe box is an ideal container because it lets air circulate or an egg carton is easy for displaying treasure. A friend of mine posted on Facebook that she’d tracked down the terrible smell in the car to some shells that the kids had found and put in a plastic bag and then into the trunk. The heat in the trunk had made it even worse! Collections can also threaten to use up all the extra space. Parents may have to “guide” the collecting. While collections can create some problems, that’s another kindergarten readiness skill, too–problem solving. What do your kids collect? What do the adults collect?
My love is collecting old teacups, especially antiques. It all started when I inherited a few from my grandmothers when they passed away. I fell in love with the personality of each teacup. I noticed each had a different style of handle and a different pattern. This brought the awareness to me that these were not just cups, they were each a piece of art each in there own special way.
I began buying them up at garage sales and antique stores to add to the few I had. I saw that there were so many styles; footed, fluted, hand-painted, decal, gilt decorated, reticulated, and so on. I purchased books on the subject and learned what names made the best quality and what makes them most collectible or valuable; although I am still learning.
I enjoy the prettiest ones, with flowers and texture to them. I most appreciate the hand painted teacups but find it hard to choose favourites among the many styles. My favourites can also change with my moods.
I now have about 130 teacups and have outgrown my space to keep them. If I buy a new one, I try to give away one of my least favourites. When I am itching to go buy a new one, I can often just satisfy the urge by viewing and examining the ones I have and appreciating them all over again.
I use my teacups too! I sometimes have my friends over for tea or brunch and we use them. I love the look of all the different teacups around my laced table surrounded by friends eating scones with jam and clotted creme.
Somehow, the conversation is always at it’s best too.
I also appreciate antique tea pots but find they take up so much room and cost more money, so I only have 6 of them. They come in handy when I want to have a few tea varieties to serve to my guests.
I hope to have many tea parties in my retirement years. I enjoy seeing who chooses what tea cup and often ask why they chose that one. I am often astonished to hear there was no particular reason, they just chose the closest. I find it hard to comprehend that others cannot see the beauty in this art form the way I do. 🙂