Reminder Bracelets

It all started when my children were showing signs of school anxiety and had difficulty coping with sibling rivalry, i.e. quarrelling and fighting. We had just moved to a new place and our special wall of values at our old house was no longer around. That wall of values had visual reminders that I could point them too whenever we needed to talk about feelings and behaviours. I wasn't prepared to set up a wall like that again so soon in our new house so I was thinking of how to get them to remember important things. Then I remembered that I used to have a reminder bracelet that I bought from a shop, it had a word carved onto it but it was not customised.

So I thought perhaps we can make our own special reminder bracelets and through the process of creating those beads, we can talk about meaningful reminders in our lives. I spent one-on-one time with my daughter to create the bracelets. We were having a very tense relationship - me shouting at her because she was shouting at her younger brother. She created a bracelet to remind her to show love to her brother and I created a bracelet to remind me to take 5 deep breaths when I am angry so that I can speak calmly.

Initially my assumption was that only girls liked bracelets but when my 2 boys saw our bracelets, they wanted to make them too! It was amazing to see their creativity and focus especially my youngest 4-year old in moulding the tiny beads. My 11-year old eldest boy took it one step further and made a bracelet for his dad as a father's day gift. These bracelets can be wonderful reminders for others too, to encourage and inspire.

I also facilitated the activity for mothers at Safe Place and they were so engrossed in making their beads that I told them to continue on making after the session! My daughter then also taught her 2 friends to make these air dry clay bracelets. Air dry clay is a great medium for people of any age who have never tried clay art before or love mess-free projects.

Hence, I put together a Reminder Bracelet Kit for children to create a reminder bracelet and talk about meaningful reminders. Creating a reminder bracelet will help them to make meaning of what has been happening and encourage them. I believe we can use creativity to make meaning of the things that have been happening in our lives. 'Meaning Making' reduces anxiety and builds resilience because it helps us to make sense of what's happening around us.

Also, the kit comes with a VIDEO LESSON! My first ever recording of a video lesson! With the video lesson, parents, caregivers and children, can focus on conversations about the meaningful reminders and make the bracelets together. I think it's so wonderful when we share a safe space together at home to create and talk about things that matter.

The Reminder Bracelet Kit is suitable for children 6 years and above and in particularly tweens will enjoy the process a lot. Each kit contains enough materials for 2 persons. You can purchase it HERE. Happy Creating!

Creativity on the Move

CARTWHEELS' vision has always been to make creative art accessible to everyone in the community. Art is not just for the well-to-do, art is not just for children, art does not just happen in a studio, art is for everyone and art can be done anywhere. So when we read about Sankalpa: Art Journeys' Community Art Cart in South India, we were inspired by how they used it to bring art activities to the community.

Sankalpa: Art Journeys has produced a Generosity Kit which contains a model-size cardboard version of their life-sized art cart in South India, to encourage individuals to pack art materials inside and take them around to share with others to make art. In support of the local artisans who have made these carts, CARTWHEELS purchased 12 Generosity Kits.

Hence the birth of project "Creativity on the Move"in September 2021 - to bring joy, hope and peace to the community through creative expression by creating and gifting Postcard Art Packs as Children’s Day Gifts for At-Risk Children in South India. These 12 Generosity Kits were distributed out to the community: children and adults in Singapore participated in creating Postcard Art Packs which contained handmade postcards (scroll down to the end to view the various postcards) and art materials. 72 Postcard Art Packs were then shipped off to South India where Sankalpa: Art Journeys helped to distributed them to children at a gypsy village and also to grade 3 children at a nearby school. They didn't quite make it in time for children's day due to the heavy rains and festival days but they were still wonderful gifts for the year end holiday season!

A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who participated in our first ever cross-cultural project, those who made the postcard art packs, and even those who helped to share the project! Thank you very much to our partner in South India, especially Ms Krupa Devi, founder of Sankalpa: Art Journeys who so generously spent her time to distribute the gifts even in the midst of the pandemic. We are so grateful for likeminded friends who have the same passion in using art to inspire creativity and promote mental wellness.

2021 Social-emotional Learning @ TOUCH Child Care

Having ran a 2-day Holiday Kids Process Art Workshop at TOUCH Childcare Hougang and TOUCH Childcare Clementi in 2020, we were back again in December 2021 to facilitate the workshop for their Kindergarteners who were transiting to Primary School. During the whole of 2021, we only conducted virtual workshops so it was a wonderful ending to the year to see the children face-to-face!

On the first day, the children listened to the "The Apple Tree Story"and each created an Apple Tree which turned out so unique and special, just like them. On the second day, we read the story "I Hear You"which will help them in expressing their emotions especially during the first few weeks of primary school life - there is no good or bad emotion, we hear them all. We wish the children all the best in their new journey in 2022!

CONTACT US at cartwheelssg@gmail.com if you're interested in having creative art programmes that develop social-emotional learning skills at your school.