Winner of the tiny painting (And new characters :)

And the winner of the tiny painting is: HEIDI KENNEY! Yay Heidi!!! And thank you sooo much to everyone who participated in this giveaway! This time I opened the book myself (with my eyes closed) in page 31 :) If you didn't win the tiny painting don't worry because there will be more chances to win a little something in the future. I promise to keep these giveaways going once a week! :)

Now I am so excited to introduce you to Miss Albertina and her special student Pascuale. Miss Albertina is a fourth grade Teacher from the Elementary School where she has been teaching for over 20 years now. One day Pacuale's Mom and Dad invited Miss Albertina for lunch because they wanted to talk to her about their son.

Pascuale's parents were so concerned about their son because he didn't show any interest in the world, he was sad and he did not want to go to school. Pascuale's parents were desperate and they thought that Miss Albertina could come out with some magic idea to help him since they had already tried everything.

Miss Albertina said: OK, let me think about this an I will call you during the weekend with a solution. Pascuale's parents waited for the call with their hearts full of hope. Then on Sunday night after Pascuale was already in bed Miss Albertina called and she said: I have the solution!

And now we should be thinking about what the magic solution was! This is something that I do with Natalie all the time, I start telling her a story and then I let her create the rest of it. In the beginning she got mad at me but now she loves it! I started doing this since she was very little and it is amazing how this game pushes her to be creative and to come out with her own ideas. In the beginning her stories were pretty basic but now they are getting more and more sophisticated. She makes up lots of problems and then she finds the solutions to them. When she is talking I remain as quiet as possible which makes her keep going, she loves me to be a good listener. The best part of it is that then she does the same thing in real life. Natalie is so resourceful, her level of frustration is lower and lower everyday because she is getting so used to finding solutions by herself and it all started in her imagination. I didn't do the job for her, I just created the conditions for Natalie to use her own mind and I am so impressed with the results.

We, as adults, are not different from children. We, even more than them, need to come out with solutions to our daily problems and the quality of these solutions is directly connected to our creativity. If we feel comfortable being creative in our imagination then we will feel comfortable being creative in real life. I try to teach myself how to see problems not exactly as problems but as opportunities to practice my creativity. When I see problems this way I get more excited about finding solutions, it really helps me see life with positive eyes. Problems will keep coming no matter what, I am so sure about it. That's why the point of this post is for us to think about our "brain muscles" and about using them as often as possible. And right now I am doing that because I am thinking about all the possible magic solutions that Miss Eduardina could come out with in order to help Pascuale :)

I wish you a happy and creative Monday my friend!
(And don't worry about Pascuale because he is going to be a happy boy very soon!)
See you tomorrow!
Elsita :)

(Miss Eduardina, little Pascuale, the magic bag that he is in and the three little drawings are now available here)