You want to do more with them at home. The craft box just never feels worth it.

Because the problem is not the activity, it is everything around it. Getting the box out feels like a project, putting it away feels like a bigger one, and they are done in three minutes. The first part of the course fixes exactly that: one corner that is allowed to get messy, a box they can reach, paint kept up high, the table protected once, and the mess planned for instead of fought. Setting out an invitation takes about thirty seconds, and three minutes of focus counts.

Lots of children are cautious, and the course does not start with a bowl of paint. The first session is a fat crayon and one colour, and later ones use one snip at a time or a single dot with a cotton bud. You learn how to use materials where a wrong mark cannot show, and with little ones, how to start first, say nothing and let them join in when they are ready. If their reaction to mess feels strong, or worries you, talk to their teacher or your doctor. This is art at the kitchen table, not therapy.

You can start any session, but the first part of the course is the reason the sessions work. It is the welcome and six short lessons, about 18 minutes in all, and each one ends with one small thing to try. It comes down to three things: take the example off the table, describe what they did instead of judging it, and add the word "yet" when they say "I can't". Do those, and you are doing what we do in our studio.

No. Part 5 shows you what school actually asks of them: hands ready for a pencil, focus, keeping going when it is hard, following a few steps, and talking about their work. Every session builds those, with no worksheets, and you learn what to look for so you can see it growing. It is not a checklist to pass. Every child gets there in their own time, and if something genuinely worries you, talk to their teacher or your doctor.

That is what Part 4 is for. Instead of you inventing something every day, you learn how to hand the ideas over to them: a help-yourself shelf, an invitation you set out without a word, ten ways to start from a single squiggle, and a three-step reply to "I'm bored". The sessions and every new session we add keep the materials changing too.

That child is exactly who this was written for. A meltdown over a fallen tower or a "ruined" drawing is a child who believes it should be perfect first go. The course gives you the exact words for that moment, built on the psychologist Carol Dweck's growth mindset research, and the sessions give them safe, small practice at things going wrong and trying again. It will not end every tantrum this week. It gives both of you somewhere better to put the day, and the skills grow from there.

Especially for you. The activities are the easy part: paper, paint, ice, cardboard. What makes the difference is how you set them up and what you say, and that's all written down for you, word for word. The point isn't a beautiful picture. It's a child who tries, keeps going and talks to you about what they made.

Because ideas are not what is missing. This gives you the part the internet leaves out: how to set it up so it is easy to start, how to begin without an example, and the exact words to say when they get stuck or ask “is it good?”. One session at our studio is $52; the sessions in here would cost $676 there, plus every word we teach with, in one payment, yours for good.

That is normal, and there is a lesson on exactly this. Little children work in short bursts, so you learn a small invitation that brings them back instead of “keep going”, and when to simply pack it away and try another day. Focus grows a few minutes at a time across the weeks.

Most of us do. The second lesson sets up one corner that is allowed to get messy and a box your child can reach, with paint kept up high, so getting it out and packing it away stop being a project. Another lesson covers what to do when paint ends up on the floor anyway.

Each lesson is a few minutes of listening, so it fits in the car or while dinner cooks. The sessions work best little and often: fifteen or twenty minutes, two or three times a week, like the half hour before dinner or a Saturday morning.

No. Every session card has a version for 6 to 8 year olds that asks more of them, and there are ten challenge cards written for that age. For children already at school, art at home is the one place with no right answer and no mark out of ten.

No. The recordings are for you, not your child. You listen on your own, then you sit down together with paper and paint. Your child never needs to look at a screen.

Yes. Everything you need is in an ordinary kitchen anywhere, and the course works on any phone, tablet or computer. Prices are in Australian dollars, so it costs less than the number you see.

Almost nothing. Paper, a few washable colours, foil, a bowl of ice, cardboard and things from your recycling. Lesson 2 has a checklist of exactly what goes in the box.

Yes. Every session card has a version for 2 to 3, 4 to 5 and 6 to 8, so they can sit at the same table doing the same thing at their own level.

No. You pay $109 once and keep it for life, including every new session we add.

Straight after payment you land on your course, and the link is emailed to you. It works on your phone, tablet or computer, and every recording can be saved for offline.

Yes. The Mini Ivy Method is our full course for educators. If you buy it within 30 days of this one, using the same email, what you paid here comes off its price.

It is licensed for your own family. If you teach, the Mini Ivy Method is the course for you. The full terms are on the licence page.

It is digital, so the moment you have it you have all of it, and sales are final. If you want to try our way first, the free Kitchen Table Ten guide is here. Your rights under Australian Consumer Law are not affected.