Creative Kids

A few hours stuck inside this weekend and this is what my girls came up with:

My 12 yr old has been crocheting for weeks – finally completing the elephant from the Mr. Funky Super Crochet Wonderful book.  Someone [else] around here doesn’t like to follow directions as you can see with the elephant-turned-bear.

My 14 yr old got a hold of my recycling bucket and the glue gun and created this masterpiece.  I think it looks like a tropical island.  But I didn’t ask her what it was.

Ever since my girls were little, I thought it was important to let their creativity flourish by not asking them to define what they do.  So I never asked them “What is it?”.  When they were younger, they’d hand me all sorts of crazy drawings and creations and I’d smile and say “That’s great!”  I think it worked - they’re both pretty creative and never tried to conform.  To reinforce the message, I often read Tomie dePaola’s book The Art Lesson to them.

Someone else blogged about this recently, and it’s always irked me when parents helped their kids to make things.  In the pre-school years, we’d be at the library making an age-appropriate craft project and someone would always get their hands on their kid’s piece and start fixing, cleaning or straightening up bits.  Not me.  Instead, I now have a great record of how my kid’s skills have developed over the years and they’ve grown this way with no criticism from me.  It think that’s important.  Getting off the soapbox now.

Having some fun editing the pictures…. Photo editing is something I want to learn more of & how to draw with vectors. 

Silly?  Goofy?  A waste of time?  Just having fun. 

Now I’m off to crochet and think about the other two projects of the week – working on that quilt & Artful Thursday’s family portrait collage. 

6 comments creativity, life, photography