Tuesday 26 February 2013

Creativity for Kids - Ways to Grow Your Child’s Creative Streak

Heightened creative intelligence leads to increased resourcefulness, or the ability to meet challenges in a variety of ways. As children develop imagination, they learn to believe in their own instincts and unique talents and they will grow a confident approach toward problem solving. In nurturing creativity for kids, you need to let go a little and leave artistic and inventive decisions up to your child. You can, however, stimulate imagination by asking provocative questions concerning the why’s, how’s, and what’s of objects and situations. It is vital that you be available to offer reassurance when artistic projects don't go to plan and praise your child for trying as well as finishing the task.

Instructional projects to stimulate creativity for kids

Sometimes, real instruction is needed. Your child needs to know how to use the art materials you have supplied – your demonstration and suggestions will assist greatly in your child’s first efforts at drawing and painting, and your supervision is unquestionably necessary in using many of these materials.

Encourage exploration to grow your child’s creative streak

Motivate your child with comments such as “How interesting; you created a secret passage-way with the blocks.” or “The way you mixed different greens for leaves makes your tree look very real.” Stimulate inventive, autonomous thinking by posing questions. With creative projects, avoid giving your child specific instructions. For instance, when making a sun catcher say, “I wonder what material the sunlight would shine through the best. What do you think?” Give merit to your child’s different ideas and opinions. Encourage creative thought by using phrases like “Well, that is definitely one way of looking at it,” or “What a GREAT idea, I’ve never thought of that before!”

Resist perfectionism in creativity for kids

You may be able to do the job faster and better, but this is all about your child learning to do things for themselves and exploring their own creativity. Resist taking over your child’s project and, likewise, do not add ‘finishing touches’ to make it perfect. The creative process is far more important than the final result. With practice, creations will improve and we need to respect the learning that occurs while an activity is taking place. A wonderful way to show respect for your child’s creative effort, thus encouraging further creativity, is to exhibit your child’s stories or artwork on refrigerators and the walls of your home. Kids also love to see their handiwork on display at their parents’ workplaces.

Explore art supplies online to suit every age group

Art stores are so much fun to explore. You may be surprised at the quantity of art materials that even a baby can manipulate and delight in (with adult supervision, of course!). Under the age of one, a child will take great enjoyment in scribbling on a large piece of butcher’s paper with a junior crayon. Your child can quickly move on to coloured pencils and chalk, and, by age two, water-based felt-tip pens. Around the age of two, your child will have the skills to start painting. Make sure you protect clothing with an art smock and the area where your child is painting with newspaper to avoid a big mess. Finger paints and paint pads are great as a starting point, moving on to easel painting with chubby paint brushes and paints as they get older. Also around the age of two and as your child’s sense of touch develops, you will find that your child loves to pummel, roll, and squash play dough. Start with hands only, and move on to using tools to manipulate the dough as your child develops great fine motor skills. Whilst it is very difficult at times to take a step back and let your child do something on their own, creativity for kids is encouraged greatly in doing just this. Smarty Arty has all of the art and craft supplies you will need to get back to basics. Go on an adventure of wild imagination with your child to stimulate that creative streak and have a wonderful time in the process.

Thursday 14 February 2013

Food, Food Glorious Food..........or maybe not the case when it comes to kids and their lunches.

There has been talk in the media lately on the quality of school and childcare lunch boxes, and what the parents think about them....

I sit on both sides of the fence. I can see the benefit of having a healthy lunch, I really don't think any parent would argue with that, but I also know how hard it is to always pack ALL Healthy, and I am not afraid to say that I don't think there is anything wrong with a muesli bar with a squiggle of chocolate on it, or a piece of homemade cake.

I as a parent DO get annoyed with my child coming home resighting comments that his kindy teacher has said, don't you listen because there is not allowed any chocolate at kindy. (we are not talking a chocolate bar, just a squiggle of chocolate). Use those ears on your head.

Mornings are busy, getting ready, breakfast, feeding our brood of animals and making lunch. I make master 4's kindy lunch, but the older two make their own, unless they are running late. And I can tell you that I can fill a lunch box with all healthy food in the beginning of the week, but towards the end, well it does come down to adding the odd meusli bar or 2.

Coming from a FDC background, I liked my daycare kiddies to eat healthy, and I would model this behaviour as I sat and ate lunch with them. I provided food, so having healthy food was easier when I had the time to prepare it all. The children and I would often use cooking as our learning experiences and I would use this to encourage children to try/taste new food, but even running a childcare, the children had balance.

 Food is an important part of our life and I think as both parents, teachers and educators alike we should also be careful on how we aproach the subject. We certainly don't need to be making our children feel guilty over eating a muesli bar or a homemade cake.

Everything comes down to balance, as long as children have a balance of good, mostly healthy and  a small amount a biscuits, or cake or other. And again balance on their activity level, eg, include some form of active play during their day. Then I think there is nothing wrong with children having their cake too.

I also beleive it is a parents responsibility to decide what their children should eat and again for them to alter the balance of their food if they think their children need to have a more healthy life style. This certainly starts at home, and most educators would know you can educate the children all you like but the parents are responsible for buying and preparing the food, if they choose junk, then the children have little choice in the matter. I also think in cases like these it makes very little difference to a child's overall health when educator/teacher focus and make a child eat only healthy food when at home, their is no healthy food in sight. In cases like this, putting so much emphasis on healthy eating and such a negative impact on unhealthy eating can also cause disturbing self image and self esteem problems, and can also lead to eating disorders as well.

My approach is enjoy food, all food. Eat the colours of the rainbow, and a little rainbow cake ever now and again. As a family we all like to try new food, and all my children enjoy the experience of cooking. To end on a lighter note, I thought I would share our new favourite salad.

Mango and Pommigratite Salad.  Recipe is an original from my husband, Kim.
 
Ingredients
1 mango diced
Half of a pomegranate seeds tapped, rind disguarded.
Half a lettuce, sliced cucumber, thinkly slices carrot.
Add together and mix throughly.
Dressing
1  tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
 3 teaspoons of honey,
1 teaspoon of olive oil
mix together and drissle over.
(we also love elderberry dressing on this salad, but this is only available online through http://www.ashboltfarm.com/ef_main.htm )