16 Ways To Stir Your Child’s Creativity

15 ways to stir your child's creativity

Children are born with innate creativity, so it doesn’t take much to encourage that crucial trait. Just a nudge here or there is plenty.

Here are some fun ways to stimulate the creativity in your child:

1. Paint one wall of your child’s room with chalkboard paint. Remind him to make frequent use of his new canvas.

2. Teach your child your favorite craft. Use simple projects and large tools to make the learning experience enjoyable.

3. Introduce your child to the concept of the art journal. Explain that thoughts, emotions and ideas can be explored through both pictures and words.

4. Take reading for pleasure a step further. Encourage your child to create illustrations or clay models of scenes from his favorite books.

5. Give art and writing supplies as holiday and birthday gifts. Something about an unbroken crayon, or a brand new pad of paper, is irresistible.

6. Find out if your local community center offers weekend art classes for kids. One of my favorite memories is of my childhood ceramic classes where I was free to experiment to my heart’s content.

7. Allow your child some occasional downtime. Creativity requires a vacuum to thrive.

8. Encourage your child to make some of his own toys. One summer, while staying at my grandmother’s virtually toy-free home, I spent every morning inventing my own card games.

9. Head to the library and borrow drawing, painting and crafting books for kids. Make sure your child has the basic supplies he needs, but then, leave him alone to experiment on his own.

10. Make innovation probable. The next time your child asks you to buy something for him, consider asking…what do we already own that we can use instead?

11. Have your child help to plan his own birthday. Allow him to decorate the cake, use stickers to dress-up the goody bags, and design his own centerpiece.

12. Introduce your child to the world of online collaboration. Pictures can be submitted to the Global Children’s Art Gallery and learn about online writing opportunities at Kidpub.

13. Offer your older child frequent creative challenges. Prompt him to draw a happy day, use his Legos to build a park or help with designing projects to utilize empty boxes of tissues.

14. Cooking is always an opportunity for innovation. Consult your child on what to garnish the salad with, which vegetables to add to the soup, and fun ways to shape the bread dough.

15. If your child dislikes using a pencil or scissors, help him to enjoy drawing programs. Microsoft Paint is easy to learn and fun for a variety of ages.

16. Most important, remember that creativity is supposed to be fun. If you find that you are critical or disatisfied by your child’s efforts, do both yourselves a favor, and quickly walk away.

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10 Free Stuffed Animal Patterns

These 10 Free Stuffed Animal Patterns utilize a variety of techniques.

Some of these stuffed animals are sewn. Others are knit or crocheted. Choose the pattern that best suits your own interests.

kitty

Free Knitting Pattern: Kitty

(Free registration required to access pattern)

owl

Free Crochet Pattern: Owl

(Free registration required to access pattern)

lion

Free Crochet Pattern: Lion

(Free registration required to access pattern)

dish and the spoon

Free Sewing Pattern: Dish And Spoon

scottie dog

Free Sewing Pattern: Scottie Dog

hedgehog

Free Knitting Pattern: Hedgehog

(Free registration required to access pattern)

penguin

Free Crochet Pattern: Penguin

(Free registration required to access pattern)

giraffe

Free Crochet Pattern: Giraffe

puppy

Free Crochet Pattern: Puppy

(Free registration required to access pattern)

mouse

Free Knitting Pattern: Mouse

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Ducky Needlepoint Pattern

duck needlepoint pattern

Description : This bright little Ducky Needlepoint Pattern would look great both as a pillow or a framed picture.

Craft Link : Ducky Needlepoint Pattern

Source : About.com

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Educational Art Sites For Kids

artists toolbox

The Artist’s Toolbox

Art in homeschools usually consists of drawing, craft kits and craft projects. These are all great ways to explore art and are easy for parents to implement.

Once in while, though, it’s a good idea to teach a little art theory. This is where The Artist’s Toolbox comes in.

The Artist’s Toolbox is a free site from The Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. It offers an illustrated art encyclopedia and movies of real artists in action. Best of all, though, is its exploration section.

The exploration section of the site has animated demonstrations on the tools of line, color, space, shape, balance and movement. After each demonstration your child can locate the use of the tool on real-life works of art and then create his own art using the same tool.

The Artist’s Toolkit is a easy-to-use site. Both you and your child will enjoy it.

KinderArt

I’m a big fan of teaching arts and crafts to kids. I believe everyone needs a creative outlet, and art projects provide one. Plus, art improves small motor skills.

Even if art just isn’t your “thing”, it’s still possible to provide a great program for your child. A wonderful website, called Kinder Art, has everything you need to create lesson plans for basic subjects like drawing, painting, sculpture, and much more. It also has lesson plans on more esoteric subjects such as architecture, textiles, folk art and multicultural art.

Kinder Art is virtually a one-stop resource for everything you’ll ever need in the art lesson department.

Crayola Creativity Center

Crayola Creativity Central is chock full of fun and inexpensive crafts for kids, educational materials for teaching and great reads for parents.

Obviously, at the center of the site are the 1000 + coloring pages. The coloring pages are divided into:

Print and Celebrate (holiday and birthday related)
Print and Color (a little of everything)
Print and Craft (bookmarks, stand up animals, dioramas)
Print and Play (science models, how to draw, fun facts)
Print and Play (dot to dot, matching, word games)

Other Important Stuff:

The Games and Fun area has a card creator, certificate maker and over 20 ideas for outdoor games.

The Crayola Crafts section has tons of craft ideas utilizing crayola products.

There are two extra bonus sections for educators and parents. The section for educators has curriculum ideas for young children, lesson plans and some nice printables. The parent’s section has printable travel games, lots of party planning freebies and an eight page pdf on encouraging creativity in kids.

Crayola Creativity Central is an absolute don’t-miss site. Even if your child doesn’t enjoy crafts there is still lots to read, print and do.

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101 Frugal Ways To Share Art With Kids

Sharing art with children can be not only fun, but inexpensive as well. Here are 101 frugal (or free!) ways to help a child come to love the world of art and crafting as much as you do.

Participate In Community Resources

1. Free Days At Museums
2. Art Badge from Scouts (PDF)
3. 4H Projects (sewing, photography)
4. Free Library Programs

Read Great Books (free if from the library)

5. You Can Draw Marvel Characters
6. Draw Your Own Manga by H. Nagatoma
7. How To Draw People by Susie Hodge
8. Landscapes by Ian Sidaway
9. Ed Emberley’s Drawing Book
10. How To Draw Animals by Susie Hodge
11. Oodles of Doodles by Mike Artell
12. Kids Draw Dinosaurs by Christopher Hart
13. Experiments With Impressionism
14. Priscilla Hauser’s Decorative Painting
15. Let’s Rock! by Linda Kranz
16. Pablo Picasso by Andrew Langley
17. Pastels by John Blockley
18. You Can Paint Pastels by Marie Blake
19. Edgar Degas (Getting to Know Artists)
20. Painting With Tempera by Paige Henson
21. Easy Origami by Didier Boursin
22. Under the Sea Origami
23. Step by Step Origami by Clive Stevens
24. Origami Toys
25. Crochet by Jane Davis
26. The Busy Mom’s Book of Quick Crafts
27. Little Hands Create! by Mary Dall
28. Big Book of Kids’ Crafts (BH & G)

Learn By Doing

29. Study Cartooning
30. Fold Some Origami Projects
31. Build With Cardboard
32. Learn to Sew
33. Decorate Cakes & Cupcakes
34. Paint With Watercolors
35. Make Some Handmade Paper
36. Create Paper Mache Projects
37. Learn To Draw With Tutorials
39. Design A Flower Garden
40. Craft With Recycled Plastic
41. Draw With Colored Pencils

Explore Interactive Sites

42. Learn About Color
43. The Dancers And Degas
44. Art Safari Learning Activity
45. C’zanne’s Awesome Apples
46. Odyssey Learning
47. Gilbert Stuart: Making Faces
48. Be An Architect Activity
49. Childe Hassam Activity
50. The Unicorn Tapistry
51. The Dutch House Online
49. Lizzie Visits A Sculpture Garden
50. Design A Greek Pot
51. Explore A Victorian Painting
52. Learn About Landscapes
53. Destination Modern Art
54. Bottlecaps To Brushes
55. Buffalo Hide Painting
56. Aaron’s Awesome Adventures
57. African Life Through Art
58. Renaissance Connection
59. A. Pintura Detective
60. Go West, Young Artist
61. Inside Art Learning Activity
62. Landscape Adventures
63. The Art Of Crime Detection
64. Leonardo’s Workshop
65. Colory Theory
66. Out Of This World Design
67. Face To Face Interactive
68. Line And Shape
69. Color Learning Game
70. The Land That Design Forgot
71. Learn About Portraits
72. Mr. Picasso Head
73. How Van Gogh Made His Mark
74. Detail Detectives

Download Free Art Software

75. Stykz Animation Program
76. Paint.NET (Photoshop clone)
77. StylePix Graphic Editor
78. TuxPaint (drawing program)

Play With Free Art Toys

79. Etch-A-Sketch
80. Build Your Own Kaleidoscope
81. The Scribbler
82. Create Your Own Flowers
83. Snowflake Toy
84. Spin Art Online Game
85. Artpad (favorite)
86. The Artist’s Toolkit
87. Still Life
88. Brushster Online Activity
89. Jungle Interactive
90. Flow Interactive Activity
91. The Swatchbox
92. RiverRun Interactive Toy
93. Wallover Toy (favorite)
94. PaintBox Interactive
95. 3-D Twirler Interactive Toy
96. Collage Machine
97. Interactive Mobile
98. Pixel Face Interactive Toy

Watch Some Videos

99. Arts And Crafts Videos
100. YouTube (search: crafts for kids)
101. Kaboose Craft Videos

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5 Crafts You AND The Kids Will Love

When my kids were younger, I loved to spend time crafting with them. Unfortunately, I hated most of the craft projects commercially available. I mean, really, how many adults actually enjoy gluing hair onto the mane of a horse? Or, gluing glitter onto the petals of a flower?

Instead, I searched for craft projects that I could love just as much as the kids did. This meant that most of the time we skipped making paper dolls and concentrated on open-ended projects like sculpture, painting and drawing.

Here are a couple of my favorite projects, along with ways to modify them for several age groups…

1) Sand Painting – For very young children, draw a simple object onto a sheet of heavy paper. For older kids, allow them to draw their own design…just remind them not to put in any small details.

2) Yarn Painting - For very young children, just yarn painting simple shapes will be a challenge. For older children, encourage them to to try yarn painting their name or one large initial.

3) Envelope Book Making - For very young children, the finished envelope book can be used to store drawings. For older children, discuss using the envelopes to store poetry or musings.

4) Sculpture Carving - For very young children, the plaster of paris can be carved with a metal spoon. For older children, a dull knife can be appropriate.

5) Artist Trading Cards Making - For very young children, supply the child with stickers, crayons, pre cut squares of paper and glue and let him go wild. For older children, this may be a good time to teach a new skill like paper weaving or quilling.

Which craft should you start with? Anyone you like. The only thing to keep in mind is to make sure you have FUN working alongside your child!

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