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Monday, December 31, 2012

BEAUTIFUL OOPS

As I sifted through piles and piles of my kids' books today (one of my New Year's Resolutions is to unclutter!), I came across one of the most life-changing children's books in our family. If you are remotely familiar with autism, you know that OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) comes with the territory. From the time Tanner was very small, he was a perfectionist. Any mistake he made while drawing (which he does a lot of) did not dare allow an eraser, but got crumpled, thrown, and trashed. Depending on the amount of time already invested in said drawing, a meltdown usually ensued. 

Then I found this little treasure:

It is a marvelous celebration of mistakes, or "Beautiful Oops". We used to read this book daily, often many times. Tanner loved the colors and the ability to interact with the book to see smudges, smears, and tears come to life. We even practiced making beautiful oopses from torn envelopes, old napkins, and crumpled newspapers. Soon, it was (almost) fun when we really made mistakes. 

Tonight, as I contemplated blogging about it, Tanner became upset when a tiny drop of water got on a picture he had printed, making a small faded place in the ink. I reminded him it was a "beautiful oops", and he decided to turn it into a raindrop and created a rainstorm (see below). :)


I highly recommend this book for any child, especially those who equate mistakes with failure. It is available on Amazon for less than $10.  
 
To see this awesome book in action, watch the YouTube video below:


1 comment:

  1. This is just the cutest book. It's so creative. I have lots of perfectionists in my classroom (it's so bad that I have to keep extra whiteout on hand). I'm definitely buying this book and will use it my classroom.

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