Creating a Vision Board During La Merienda

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Growing up my family would spend special time together sharing stories about our past.  Mi mamá, mi abuela y mis tias (My mom, my grandmother and my aunts) would gather around a table during la Merienda and share tales from their childhood.  My sister, myself and sometimes a few cousins would anxiously sit around giddy with excitement about the story we’d hear that day. It was a time to connect, learn about our culture, hear family stories shared down the generations and we enjoyed it very much.  When my son was born I left the majority of our family in New Jersey and moved to Florida.  Since we are no longer near our family it’s important to me that I pass down family traditions to my children. I decided to share a special Merienda with my kids by making vision boards and teaching them how powerful they can be.

Sharing La Merienda with my kids translates to spending quality time together.  This Latino tradition usually occurs after lunch and before dinner.  We had so much fun making these, I know you’ll enjoy it as well.  Nothing beats spending time with your loved ones and making happy memories.  First thing I picked up were some M&M’®s Fun Size Variety and MARS Chocolates variety mix caramel lovers.  YUM! My niece accompanied us to the store, she was happy to help us find the MARS Chocolates.  They were easily found on an end cap of the store as well as in the candy aisle.  Our favorites are M&M’®s, SNICKERS®, TWIX® and M&M’s® Peanut.

 

Here are the items you’ll need to help your child create a vision board:

I created a fun atmosphere by playing Merengue and Salsa music in the background.  I chose white poster boards because I like the crisp clean white background, though you can choose color boards as well.  Gather many different types of magazines so they have a good choice of pictures to choose from along with words to cut out. You can use glue sticks or regular glue.  Make sure the scissors are made for kids.  Have the kids go through magazines and find images that reflect what they would like to try, like to achieve, like to do or see.

I was in my early 20’s when I first created a vision board and I remember how the images I chose came to life.  Specifically two images I clearly remember are a picture of a cruise boat I had on my vision board; less than a year later, I went on a cruise with a few friends for the first time.  I also had a picture of Maxwell, the R&B singer and a few months later I got through a busy phone line while he was on the Tavis Smiley show on BET and asked him a question on live TV.  While these may seem like trivial things, they showed me that our wishes/thoughts we put out into the universe and on a vision board are truly a powerful thing.

 

I explained to the kids that these vision boards would be powerful visualization tools that could help them dream up those things they want into real life.  Because they are 8 and 5, the images they chose were very different than what you and I may pick and it was so interesting to hear my daughters reasoning as to the images she chose as opposed to my son.  You will see the difference in personalities during this process.

My son chose pictures like a dirt bike, because he says he’d like to try BMX riding again and he cut out a picture of a lobster because he likes fishing and wants to catch one.  He also chose a basketball player because he loves the sport and wants to excel in it.   Yes he did pick a watch, not sure about that one yet, ha ha!  My daughter chose three singers she’d like to see in concert, she picked a cartoon character she said she wanted to meet (aw) and also hairstyles she likes (so cute, how their minds work).  I reminded them to find words as well.  I helped them and together we found some great ones that we agreed they wanted on their boards such as, Gods Love, Step up in school, be bright and beautiful, be brave, live colorfully and eat right!

You can make a vision board yearly, bi-annually, or as often as you like, it doesn’t have to be a one time thing.  Also take your time, you don’t have to finish these in a day.  We took several days during our Merienda time and enjoyed the process.  Discussing why they chose their pictures was fun as well.  Hopefully when my kids are older and sharing their memories with their family, they’ll talk about how mom taught them to use vision boards over some MARS Chocolate treats.  What things do you do during La Merienda?