Creativity in Kids is on the decline and it is a sad situation that we need to remedy – a we need to know how to encourage creativity in kids then set to work! !
Have you been wondering how to encourage creativity in kids?
Creativity in kids helps to expand their minds and helps them to see the world in new ways.
Here are some activities and ideas to help encourage creativity in kids.
Creativity in Kids
Creativity in Kids and How to Encourage It
“When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college- that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared back at me, incredulous, and said, “You mean they forget?”” – Howard Ikemoto
“Every child is an artist, the problem is staying an artist when you grow up.” Pablo Picasso
How to encourage Creativity in Kids to increase their intelligence
Traditional IQ tests usually focus on verbal and mathematical skills which relate to logical and analytical thinking.
These are important skills but being creative and resourceful can be just as important, particularly in today’s world where people deal with and adapt to a growing amount of information and changes.
Creative intelligence has to do with making connections, imagining possibilities and coming up with new ideas that allows a person to think, see and express herself in new ways. The great thing about creativity in kids is that is something that can be encouraged and improved on.
Books to encourage creativity in kids
I have written a selection of well being activity books packed with creative activities to help them manage their moods and emotions and feel more resourceful and resilient sand of course to inspire more creativity in kids
Check out my post on summer nature crafts for tons of ways to encourage creativity in kids.
My Create Your Own books are all suitable for 6-12 years olds and packed with CBT style activities ranging form making mandalas to lava lamps, baking bread and trying their hand at tai chi – tons of ways to encourage creativity in kids.
Inspire creativity in kids with the create your own series
Valuing Creativity in Kids and how to encourage creativity in kids
Of course it is important for kids to focus on their basic courses like math, science and English, but it’s also important for them to hone their creative thinking skills and spend time expressing and exploring themselves in the arts.
Parents can do simple things to show the importance of the arts and encouraging more Creativity in Kids from checking out an art gallery together to making sure to have a wall to post a child’s artwork at home. Encouraging creativity in kids requires attention.
“Creativity requires faith. Faith requires that we relinquish control.” Julia Cameron
Get Kids Involved in Arts Programmes to inspire Creativity in Kids
There are many great arts programs in and out of school that allow kids to work their creative sides. These include drama, dance, ballet, painting, drawing, and pottery. Perfect for creative and artistic children.
There are also creativity classes set up these days to help children explore their inventive side, from learning how to build their own Lego robots to creating their own jewelry.
There are so many choices that a parent might feel overwhelmed and/or put her child in too many such afterschool activities.
creativity in kids
Keeping it simple, flexible and child led is the key here. Creativity in Kids needs space.
The idea is for a child to enjoy this time, not feel overburdened. Talk to her about the options out there and talk about where her interests lie. Then pick a few courses to check out and pursue, be it talking about what such a program would offer, going to a drop-in session or observing a class for a day to see if it would be something she would like.
Creativity in kids requires opportunity.
Have Music Time Together to encourage Creativity in Kids
Creative time does not have to come in a paid program. Enjoy the arts at home with the kids so they can let loose their creative sides. Set aside time to listen to music or even make some music as a family using actual instruments or made up ones from pots, pans, and plastic containers.
Live it up and have a dance party. Put on different kinds of music from classical to hip hop and get kids to show off their fancy dance moves.
Your role in encouraging creativity in kids
Encourage Creativity in kids by responding to it with joy acceptance and celebration and by joining in if they would like you to.
Even if it is messy, noisy and annoying don’t show your irritation juts recognize this is a part of the process (and have them join you in tidying up later.)
Naturegram!
Follow these nature hashtags on Instagram to see tons of fabulous nature based activity ideas which will absolutely encourage creativity in kids.
Let Kids Enjoy Making Art & Encourage Creativity in Children
Another idea is to have a range of art supplies such as paints, crayons, pencil crayons, play dough, glue, and paper available at home. Give kids time to draw whatever they want or have an art challenge. Give them each a shoe box and see what interesting things they can make out of it with the various art supplies.
Fostering creativity in children is an important part of developing a well-rounded child. Role model valuing creativity and the arts, find an afterschool program where a child can express herself and/or have creative arts time together at home.
Don’t police their art it doenst have to look like something. Let them explore and experiment.
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” Maya Angelou
Think about the future when you encourage creativity in children
Encouraging childhood creativity is critical to ensuring that they will be prepared to succeed in the global economy where rote skills are less and less desirable.
Consider some of the classic toys designed to entertain and teach children.
For example, the multi-colored donuts that fit over a pole from largest to smallest. Now, think about what that toy is really teaching and picture a generation of factory line workers correctly lining up a washer and nut over and over again until the 10:30 a.m. coffee break. That not an appealing future for most children. ( though some will of course love routine, low stress rote jobs)
Creativity in Kids Learning Requires Creative Toys
Look around the house or at the local store at the toy options children have: models with detailed instructions to follow; blocks that are supposed to be arranged in certain ways; kits that include only the pieces necessary to build a certain thing, a certain way.
Listen to how children are talked to about their play. That’s a stick, not a gun. Rocks don’t belong in the dollhouse. Doors don’t go on the second floor. The colored donuts go from largest to smallest; or, do they? Give your child instead the tools that encourage creativity in kids.
- Paints
- Blank paper
- Nature
- A homemade craft box
- Lines paper and a pen
- Free lego blocks
- A table
- Floor space
- Their own piece of the garden
- Lots and lots of time
Creative children just love to build Lego!
Nature is a great way to encourage creativity in kids
In my latest book Nature Craft and Play I share 52 fun activities following the seasons.
Filled with crafts, gardening, games, art and science activities for children aged 7 years and up that are budget-friendly and will entertain all year round. All of these activities encourage creativity in kids in the most natural of surroundings.
From Spring sunflower challenges to Summer mandalas, Autumn conker craft to Winter pine cone decorations, it will inspire children to get creative with nature!
More ways to encourage creativity in kids
Frozen paint
Frozen paint is a great way to encourage kids to get creative while also staying cool on a hot day. Let them choose which colours they freeze and then, once the paint is frozen, they can create colour pictures by pushing the ice blocks around on pieces of card or craft paper. – The mummy bubble
Sidewalk chalk
Sidewalk chalk is a great way for kids to express their creativity and imagination. They can draw, play games and even create obstacle courses. simply-well-balanced.com
Encouraging creativity in kids is fun for the whole family!
Origami
Nature Creativity in Kids
Recycling creativity in kids
This is an easy kid craft where kids learn to make a coffee filter butterfly. Learn how to take everyday items and turn them into a fun summer craft for kids. This craft also teaches them about paper chromatography craftingwithkids.net
Amazing possibilities with art
Making flowers from paper – more Creativity in Kids and How to Encourage It
Creativity in Kids – Summer Soda making
To encourage creativity in kids we need to think backwards
Words to inspire creativity in kids
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.
OMG don’t these look so yummy! A perkof having a child who loves to create is great bakes!
“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for.”
-Georgia O’Keeffe, 1976.
“If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.”
-Vincent van Gogh.
“If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.” – Marc Chagall
If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in
More fabulous creativity in kids quotes
Children, like animals, use all their senses to discover the world. Then artists come along and discover it the same way all over again.’
We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
Every child is born blessed with a vivid imagination. But just as a muscle grows flabby with disuse, so the bright imagination of a child pales in later years if he ceases to exercise it.
Which one of these quotes is your favorite?
Over to you and your ideas on how to encourage creativity in kids
How to Encourage Creativity in Kids – do you have any ideas to add to this? Drop me a comment below if you do I always love to hear from you. and creativity in kids is a concept we must all share! And connecting is always inspiring. You all bring so many wonderful and varied ideas to my table and I hope that I do the same for you and yours through my words and my blog posts.
Take care of yourselves and each other – stay creative it is SO good for all of you
Becky x
