Colouring AGAIN?

"What are we going to do today?" JJ asked enthusiastically.
"Let's do some colouring! Yeah!" as I tried to make it sound fun and interesting. "Look what we've got today! Crayon rocks! You can colour with these"

He was curious about the crayon rocks and hence sat down promptly and started to play and scribble with them. His interest only lasted for less than 3 minutes. I can even count the number of strokes he made with the crayon rocks. I failed again! I have tried markers, crayons, pencils, pens and chalks to no avail.

I have always knew that JJ dislike colouring and am pretty relaxed about it because he is only turning 3yo later this year. Why the rush? But peer pressure seeped in and I got even more anxious when his teacher expressed concerns on his colouring skills.

What can I do to make him interested? It seems like it is an activity that most kids enjoy. Well, in Sunday School and most kids events, there will be colouring activity, fully supplied with nice colourful crayons/pencils and stacks of colouring sheets or craft. Surely these prove that COLOURING is a very popular activity, doesn't it?

In the earlier days, though disappointed with the suggested activity, JJ would still sit down with other kids, meddle with the colouring supplies, observe his surrounding, scribble a little and then wondered into his own little world. These days, he will tell me straight away that he doesn't want to join.

In this picture, you can see that while all the other kids are busy colouring their masks, JJ is cutting papers in a corner instead. His mask, laying on the floor, did have some scribbles after much persuasion from me.

Yes, JJ is just not ready. The more I push, the more he will resist. I should try other fun ways to strengthen his pencil grasp, and maybe he will surprise me one day.

He loves painting. I just have to come up with different ideas to get him to use the paint brush instead of his hands. Painting on toilet rolls seems to be the most effective. He is able to focus longer and finish all the paint work.

In the process of doing crafts with JJ, I  also found out that he likes to squeeze the glitter glue tube. I reckon this is good finger exercise for him and hence created more opportunity for him to use them :)

However, I admit that on some days, I couldn't resist trying my luck to get him to colour. "JJ, let's do some colouring!" :)