10 Ways to Build your Child's Creativity

November 14, 11:44 PMMankato Homeschooling ExaminerAlicia Bayer

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A cut up cardboard box becomes a pile of canvases for painting projects

credit: Alicia Bayer

Creativity is an important trait to encourage in children.  Not only does it help solve problems, find solutions, improve conditions and dream up new ideas, but it also provides a healthy outlet for stress.

Many adults have been brainwashed into thinking they are not creative.  Sometimes creativity gets squelched but we all have creative potential.  Here are some easy ways to encourage your children's creativity (and maybe rediscover your own).

1. Draw odd shapes on pieces of paper and ask them to make pictures out of them.

2. Tell sharing stories-- take turns saying a sentence or a phrase and make it up together as you go. For toddlers, have them fill in words ("once upon a time there was a ____ named ____ who loved to ______....").

3. Give toys that are as open-ended as possible, allowing kids to come up with their own ways to play with them.

4. Encourage them to make toys out of found objects-- rocks, sticks, acorns, empty boxes, etc.

5. Provide them with a wide variety of art materials and have some choices always available. Remember that there is more to art than crayons and markers. Oil pastels, watercolor pencils and colored chalk will all create unique creations for not much more money than crayons, and are often much more satisfying to work with.

6. Play a variety of music in your home. Tune in to a radio station in another language sometimes. Have the kids dance or paint to classical music. Sing songs together and make up your own silly ones.

7. Let the sky be green. I know so many adults who tell me they've hated art ever since their 1st grade teacher criticized their painting for having a pink dog or rainbow colored sky. Art is never wrong! I promise they will grow up knowing the sky is blue anyway.

8. Give kids your trash. If you're tossing it anyway, give it one last hurrah as an art project. Empty cereal boxes, ripped up magazines, stickers from junk mail, old makeup, ripped clothes or empty containers can all be transformed for an afternoon into something fun. Then recycle or toss it without guilt.

9. Discuss the art in the picture books you read. Illustrators use watercolors, collages, pen and ink, colored pencils and even crayons to illustrate children's books. Read a book together and then do an art project loosely imitating the style of the artist.

10. Set an example! No more excuses to say you're no good at art. Show the kids that creativity is fun and valuable. Take up a hobby for yourself, from photography to scrap booking to song writing. Sometimes we lose ourselves in parenting or work or simply the busy details of life. Art is one way to find your voice and get some peace.