Encouraging art and creativity in your children
If you're reading this article, chances are you have a creative soul and love to let your immagination soar - because - why else would you be visiting a site aimed at crafts, hobbies and other such creative pursuits?You may well be talented and artistic however, have your children inherited this creativeness and resourcefullness? And if they haven't - are there ways you can stimulate an interest in them? Here are a few tips as to what you can do…
Encourage your children to be creative by providing them with the time, resurces and the space for making art.Set aside some interruption-free quality time for drawing, in a mess-proof zone – so that their creativity can run wild. Ensure that you cover all surfaces so that any splashes of paint or scribbles of crayon are ‘caught’ – because nothing squishes creativity more so than a parent saying “Don’t make a mess” every 2 minutes.
It is also very important to choose the right drawing materials as well. Many craft materials can be improvised, think of decorated kitchen roll tubes and potatoes as stamps, but when drawing tools and paper are required, opt for a small selection of good quality age-appropriate products, rather than loads of inferior products. Always ensure that you check safety information and follow instructions. During any ‘art-time’ children should always be surpervised because many necessary materials – such as crayons – pose a choking hazard.
Surroundings: As with writing or working at a computer, good posture and a comfortable position are important for drawing. A child-size table and chair is actually preferable to an easel. If the chair is a little high, provide a phone book for a footrest. A coffee table and an inexpensive plastic chair work well. A small kitchen storage trolley is ideal for containing supplies, or if space does not permit, a portable tackle box is a good option too. Untidy toddlers may need a drop-cloth and supervision to avoid ink-stained walls, as even ‘washable’ pens often don’t deliver on that promise!
Art Materials: Avoid cheap markers, too-hard pencils and thin paints – these types of materials are discouraging to the child and therefore a waste of money. Provide many sheets of blank paper to inspire their crativity and occasionally invest in a canvas so that your child can paint something and chances are you’ll want to hang it on your wall!Also provide coloring books or coloring pages – of which you’ll find plenty online. Granted – coloring pages are not so great for creativity, however they do provide children with the chance to practice their fine motor skills and sometimes it’s very relaxing and just what they need to simply color in without the ‘pressure’ of thinking about WHAT to draw.
For example little girls may enjoy coloring images of Barbie and at sites like Barbie Coloring Pages you’ll find the best free Barbie coloring
When it comes to drawing and coloring, at each age/stage of your child’s life provide….
Toddlers
- Child-safe markers and wipe-off boards
- Chalk boards and safe chalk
- Plain paper and coloring pages
Juniors
- Sketchbook
- Student colored pencils
- Washable Markers
- Oil pastels
- Plain paper and coloring pages
Middle School
- Sketchbook or scrapbook
- Graphite Pencils
- Watercolor sketch paper
- Watercolor pencils
- Marker pens, marker paper
- Plain paper and coloring pages
High School
- Sketchbook or scrapbook
- Quality drawing papers and boards
- Graphite Pencils
- Artists’ quality colored pencils
- Illustration markers, marker paper
- Pastel paper and hard pastels if liked
- Plain paper and canvases to work on
All ages
- Safe sharpeners, erasers, dusters, stencils and rulers
- A folder for storing large pieces
- Storage boxes for smaller pieces
- Consider photographing or scanning pieces for a permanent record.
Children’s creativity – encouraging drawing and coloring
The simple acts of drawing and coloring are literally childs’ play, however, both of these past-times play an important role in your child’s physical, emotional and cognitive development. Like no other activity, the hobby of drawing and coloring allows young children to express themselves and their emotions, experience autonomy and build their confidence.
Parents and caregivers such as teachers and grandparents can promote the hobby of drawing and coloring as a way to improve physical, social, emotional and cognitive development-and to have a lot of fun along the way too. Here are some suggestions:
1. Provide your grankids with nontoxic materials, blank sheets of white paper and coloring pages.
2. Model drawing. Show children that you enjoy drawing and coloring too – make designs but do not show your children what they should draw.
3. Encourage all drawing and coloring efforts by talking about the beautiful colors, the lines and shapes the child has made.
4. Rather than ask, “What have you drawn?,” say “Tell me everything about your drawing”. Asking “What is it?” suggests to the child that he may have failed to draw the image correctly.
5. Talk about concepts like thin, thick, wide, narrow, dark, light, edge, shape, contour, etc.
6.Display their art in a prominent place – such as the kitchen fridge, and in places where visitors to your home will see them. Point them out to visitors, friends and relatives – the praise fthey will receive for the work will boost a child’s self esteeem and confidence.
7.Give kids the freedom to choose the subjects of their drawings and the types of coloring sheets they would like. Some argue that coloring sheets do very little to foster children’s creativity – however they do play a vital role in developing a child’s fine motor skills – a pre-cursor to writing – and often encourage children who wouldn’t otherwise draw and color to pick up a crayon to color in their favourite character. For example little girls may enjoy coloring images of fairytale princesses while boys enjoy coloring images of favourite characters such as Pokemon or Spongebob Squarepants and at sites like Spongebob Coloring Pages you’ll find many Spongebob coloring page Always supervise younger children while they draw and color – because crayons pose a choking hazard.
Did you Know that Doing A Fall Craft with Children can Add Many Side Benefits?
Crafts as in generally done, or crafts with kids has never been touted as an activity that is supposed to do more than keep kids busy, give them some fun and as some say add creativity to a child’s life.
Kids crafts however should do more than that, much more, actually.
Kids crafts, done well, in an educational crafts approach, adds 4 benefits to the activity.
It can take them into the academic realm by allowing them to think through problems.
It can make them take initiative really make them creative and raise their self esteem.
I can show you how to get kids to make a crafts, in this case a fall crafts that will encompass all of the benefits above.
If you take a look online, the majority of the crafts for kids are made up by adults.
Adults think of a cute idea, create it, get the materials, and have the children follow in step by step fashion.This creates what we call “copycat crafts”.
Remember though, in order for the children to indeed benefit from the skills above, they need to be involved in actually doing the projects themselves without the adults constant supervision.
Since we don’t want to give the children total freedom which leads to chaos, we give them a happy medium.
As you are setting up a crafts project for kids, the first thing you should have in mind is what is the basic goal of this crafts. Will it be a fall scene, winter scene? Etc. Then, start thinking of the materials you can give the children that will suggest Fall. Imagine a basket full of fall vegetables. Stunning, rural fall foliage.
Two very important or helpful things in this equation are Number one:To gather a lot of different pictures to hang up so that the children can get inspiration from these pictures and pick parts of the pictures that they want use in their craft.
As most crafts projects do well with a focal point, it would be a good idea for you to prepare some choices that the kids can use for their focal points.
Choosing many widths and lengths of tree trunks as the focal point for a fall picture would make lot of sense in this case.
If you look at this Fall craft collage I give step by sep instruction on how to do a fall craft like this.
What happens is, children are free to think on their own without adult interference.
Just because kids are given the freedom to begin projects with minimal restriction is exactly what teaches them initiative taking
Their creativity, of course blooms because they are being allowed to create what they like.
Imagine how much of a self esteem booster this is.
If you are an early childhood teacher you may find another interesting crafts project in this style called Fall projects for the preschool classroom.
The difference in what this type of crafts, or as I call it educational arts and crafts does for children is indescribable.
How To Make A Tutu Guide
I have written this brief piece to offer you a few plain tips on how to make a tutu. If you have ever observed a Ballet dancer then the wide fluffy looking skirt is the type of tutu skirt I am talking about here. You can either make it stiff simply like the Ballet dancer or supple and bouncy which would be more apt for a small person or as an add-on to an outfit.
As with any undertaking of this nature you will be required to unearth the base materials. Depending on what fashion, colour or type of Tutu you wish to make you will have to to get hold of the proper amount of tulle. You can in all probability discover the material in the community craft shop or anywhere else that sells materials. You may well even do a search on the net to discover what it is you need and get it delivered directly to your house.
Evidently if you own a pattern you will get hold of this much simpler if not it is time to start taking a quantity of dimensions. To work out how much textile you want the first thing you will have to do is calculate from the widest section of the waist through to the knees. This provides you the span of your tutu and is additionally best measured if the beneficiary is at complete stride out. The subsequent amount is around the widest quantity of the waist itself.
To make your tutu lightweight and fluffy I invariably prefer to use three times the waist measurement in material. You’ll be able to either tie your material around your chosen waist band or sew it together. Double or triple it up to offer it the body and you can even layer the tutu down the legs as well.
Making your waist band ought to be just as ton of] fun as it’s to make a tutu itself. You’ll be able to add all sorts of things to the waistband itself like ribbons and bows. Use a bow to cover the join or leave enough material so that you’ll be able to use the actual waist band itself to form a pleasant bow at the rear. In fact this could prove a little troublesome to put on yourself.
That was just some short recommendations on how to make a tutu. If you really want to find out how to make a tutu then with a little effort and practice you’ll be able to be making many of them each day. What you do with them is up to you however you’ll obviously provide them away as presents or maybe sell them at the local markets.
There is nothing more fun than to sit and do things with the children. One factor I love to try and do is teach them How To Make A Tutu. Other than spending time with the children you can also smarten up your own clothes and add a little bling to those older done in outfits or do what James does and turn your passion into a small business once you learn How To Make A Tutu.
Learn 4 ways to turn holiday crafts with kids into a real learning experience.
When it comes to activities that adults do with kids, crafts is probably at the very top.
Homeschoolers, stay at home moms, early childhood teachers, grandparents
feel that since children usually love pasting and cutting, then crafts is a great way to spend time with each other. This is often done around holiday tiem
As a time filling activity, crafts is one of the best, as children love to mess and glue and color and can do so for long periods of time.
It’s when adults expectations of what young children can actually create in crafts collides with reality, that problems arise. They then feel that the only way children can create crafts is by copying an adults model. I call this “copycat crafts”.
If you are a real traditional sort and have no problem with creating robots out of your children then go right ahead and keep doing these kinds of crafts. There are books and websites that are full of them
and I am sure there will be no difficulty finding tons of crafts online for kids to copy.
First listen, however, to a short explanation of the detriments of copycat crafts. You can also go download a free report that will help you with all kid crafts by explaining to you in detail the pros and cons of copycat crafts and educational crafts.
Robots just follow directions without thinking. So that is what happens to children who don’t think when making projects, but just follow directions. Copycat crafts is detrimental to your children and I would like to explain why that is.
Art should NOT just be to commemorate holidays. It should be an enriching experience for children and they should be gaining all sorts of wonderful skills from it.
Doing crafts the correct way gives children an opportunity to use their brains by solving problems, learning greater independence and developing a greater self esteem.
Fine motor coordination is best honed by doing lots of tradtional arts and crafts is what many will tell you. what they don’t realize though is there are not too many other benefits.
I have a great post for you that gives a great example of creativity in art by showing you how children can make a crafts activity of flowers using both methods.
Why is it then that adults tend to only get busy with crafts around holiday time.
So where do we go from here?
If you like the idea of adding more creativity to kids crafts you can check out Educational arts and crafts which will give you lots of crafts for kids to do that are truly educational.
If you want to try doing educational crafts on your own, however, and not copycat crafts then there 4 points to keep in mind when choosing a crafts for your children.
1. Does this activity allow for any problem solving?
2.Will making this project allow for any thinking skills?
3. Where’s the creativity here?
4.Would a child feel a sense of accomplishment after doing this craft?
If you keep these thoughts in mind when choosing crafts then not only will you be commemorating the holidays and spending quality time with your children but they also will be gaining vital skills
Arts and Crafts – the benefits to your children
The benefits of arts and crafts such as drawing and coloring for kids are frequently argued by child development experts, educators and parents alike… especially so for the real impact they have on child development. However, it is difficult to argue with the top three reasons why we should all encourage the children in our care to take part in arts and crafts.
Creativity – If you were to ask a cross section of individuals what is the first personality characteristic that arts and crafts will develop in a young child – most would answer ‘creativity’. And they are correct. Everyone has natural talents and skills and it is possible to improve and boost them… even if you only have a little natural talent. Creativity enables your child to try out and benefit from new
ideas, options and alternatives in any future career. Kids learn to do things in new ways and literally profiting from thinking “out of the box”.
Perseverance – Perseverance is perhaps the single most important quality for any successful individual – be they a a business person, sportsman or other professional.In fact, most well-known accomplishments in life have been attributed to perseverance alone. Arts and crafts improve everyone’s level of perseverance. For instance, children learn to keep trying until they complete the task, be it a sculpture or a coloring in sheet.If something unexpected goes wrong… they are encouraged to persist by trying new ways and means and the pay-off is a wonderful piece of art that they have created.
Concentration – Similar to having perseverance, developing concentration is another quality well-worth having as an individual. Drawing, coloring, sculpting, painting and even doodling will definitely teach your child to focus on one specific task at hand… ignoring other distractions. In short they overall concentration will definitely improve.
Even from a young age children can draw and color – so give them blank pieces of paper or coloring in sheets so that they can scribble away to their hearts content whilst also improving their fine motor skills.
For example little girls enjoy coloring images of princesses and fairies and at sites like Fairy Coloring Pages you’ll find the best fairy colouring
Little boys on the other hand prefer pictures of cars, trucks and machinery – however, favorite characters such as those from Disney movies are also hits with little boys.
Give your child several opportunities to experience being creative, concentrating and perservering through the fun medium of arts and crafts. Provide them with materials and resources and the occasional canvas so that they can be creative and feel pride in what they create.