Today, Daniela Baker from the consumer credit education website, CreditDonkey shares some easy-to-do activities that will help develop the creative side of your child.  Enjoy!  ~EMP

It is important for parents to understand that physical development and cognitive development do not occur at the same rate.  While physical development may progress over a period of years, creativity peaks during the early childhood.  As the parent of a young child, it can be exciting to know that you are witnessing the most creative period of his or her life! Creativity is shown by your child’s ability to take current information and make new connections. This differs from knowledge which is the process by which we store information for future use.

According to Arlene F. Harder, MA, MFT, in her book Distinguish Between Your Child’s Needs and Wants, it is not necessary to buy expensive toys to develop creativity in your child. However, you do need to provide your child with a rich diversity of experience that encourages them to develop creativity in different areas.  Creativity takes many forms: art, dance, music, writing and it is important to expose your child to each so they may learn where their special talents lie.

Ask open-ended questions.  When your 2 or 3 year old toddler asks a question, resist the temptation to provide a direct answer. In many cases, your child has already developed their own theory so reply with an open-ended question, such as “What do you think is the best way?” or “Why do you think that happened?” His or her answer may be right on target or be a theory based on some combination of their past experience Keep in mind that the logic of children may wander way off course but this is to be appreciated and enjoyed as it provides you a wonderful window into their thinking process as they develop the cognitive skill of cause and effect.

Encourage Creative Thinking. When you have time during the day, show your child an everyday object and ask how this could be used in different ways. For example, a cup can be used to drink milk, hold pennies, or be even act as a flower pot!  This activity encourages your child to apply creative thinking to common objects and events in their daily lives.

Read Stories. Dr. Seuss’ Cat-in-the-Hat series is one of the most beloved children’s stories of all time.  Who else but Dr. Seuss can make “green eggs and ham” sound like a delicious breakfast? The idea of Green Eggs and Ham expanded into a sixty page story teaches your child how to think-outside-the box and make connections to one central idea.

Engage in Dramatic Play. Dramatic play provides an opportunity for your child to take internalized thoughts and act them out in social situations. For dramatic play between parents and children, ask your child to tell you a story and then act it out among family members Expect that your child will take the director’s role and change the scenario as s/he watches their ideas come to life. Act out all new versions so your child can see how their different ideas play-out in the “real-world.”

Make some music.  All children love to make music with unusual items! For example, place some pennies in a empty soda can for home-made castanets. Alternatively,  turn over some Tupperware for a fun drum set. Have the whole family join each with each member playing a different instrument.”

Engage in art-based activities. Art activities are the classic means to develop creativity in children. The activity needs to focus on the process, not the product. Encourage your child to combine material in unique ways. The following are some ideas for children of different ages:

• Provide a two year old with pre-cut shapes such as squares, rectangles, and triangles made out of multi-colored construction paper which they can the glue together an a large piece of cardboard.
• Provide a three-year old with a mound of play dough which they may shape and offer some raisins, cheerios, marshmallows, and jellybeans to stick into it.
• Provide a four-year old with different color ribbon from which they may create flags or banners.
• Give a five year old a collection of pre-cute magazine picture and have him glue the pictures together into a montage.

Each of these activities focuses on the process of creating, rather than the materials used to create. This is an important distinction because what a child learns about their abilities while exploring and engaging in creative activity is an invaluable learning tool.

Photo Credit, girl drawing.  Photo Credit kids playing music.

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Sarah Morris, from Primrose preschools, shares a post with us today about how to cultivate a great love of literacy with children. ~EMP

Young children love to imitate what the adults in their lives are doing. They will happily “clean” the house while Mom performs her chores or “mow” the lawn in imitation of Dad. If they see their grown-ups writing letters, cards and lists, they will enjoy creating their own missives. First comes ‘scribble writing,’ those squiggles on paper that kids produce and wise parents cherish. From these efforts will grow the idea that writing is fun.

Reading to children often and encouraging them to associate words with the story and pictures will help them learn that writing can convey a message. The daily book a child enjoys with a parent can lead to greater success with reading and other academic work. Writing also plays into this. Having a child draw some pictures from the story and then “write” about what he drew will bring out creative expression and enjoyment.

Parents who want to encourage their children to write need to simply accept the first efforts at letter formation. Those little hands have not yet developed the fine coordination needed to produce recognizable letters. Instead, allow the child to play with writing so the process becomes familiar and doesn’t seem difficult.

Children can make cards for friends and family members. It doesn’t matter what the picture represents or how the ‘letters’ look. At this age, the experience is far more important than the product. Exploring with paper and markers, crayons or pencil will stimulate the child’s desire to tell her own stories. It is best not to ask what the picture or writing is about. Instead, talk about how much the child likes to draw. Discuss the colors and shapes. Let her tell the story if she wants.

After plenty of practice with ‘scribble writing’ a child is prepared to move on to actual letter formation. Parents should again take this slowly and follow the child’s lead. The first letter is usually the beginning of the child’s name. If he says that is the letter he wrote, accept this as fact and compliment his efforts. Research shows that praising a child’s efforts on the way to a goal will provide much greater encouragement than praising an achievement.

Look for opportunities. Provide writing materials whenever parent and child are in a waiting room or at a restaurant table. This will help to curb boredom and keep the child engaged, happily practicing those all-important writing skills.

Provide materials for the child to use, and she will jump in with all the enthusiasm of the young and innocent. Paper of all types and various writing implements will encourage creative exploration of the world of writing. By supporting the child’s natural inclination to imitate what adults do, parents can soon realize that their child is well on his way to producing that first novel or term paper.

Sarah Morris on behalf of Primrose preschools- where your child gets the best foundation in education.

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Thursday night I attended an All-Beethoven concert at the Fraser Performance Studio at the WGBH building in Boston.  It was an intimate setting where the radio station was recording a tribute to Beethoven to be aired on his birthday!  (It was awesome and I will elaborate in another post.)

So many musical organizations plan for all-Beethoven concerts and my mom and I try to make a couple of these a year.  If you don’t know already, my family loves Beethoven: the man and his music. For the last few years of my grandfather’s life, I would even send him a Beethoven birthday card in December. It was our “thing” and when I started teaching, I decided to take that love of Beethoven and fun of celebrating his birthday into the classroom. (In fact, it was through my integration of Beethoven’s music into my 5th grade student teacher that all this Inspired Classroom stuff began!)

I continue to celebrate Beethoven’s birthmonth each year with my students. They love it! We do all sorts of activities: readings and listenings centered around the great composer. One fun thing I have done several years is have our own all-Beethoven recital in class. Based on the idea of the many all-Beethoven concerts I’ve attended, my students are invited and encouraged to prepare a song by Beethoven to perform for the class.

I begin my introducing the idea. More often than not, students already know a piece or two by Beethoven and are excited to share. Some of them take private piano lessons, others are learning songs on the recorder in music class, and others play his themes by ear.  In the past I have had students play on the piano, recorder and guitar. I’ve even had a girl create a birthday rap for Beethoven.  It was a hit!

Once students are excited about the recital, I set up a sign up sheet where students can write in their names, pieces they wish to perform and instrument they will be playing.  Many sign up as individuals and other sign up in duets or small groups.  There are always students who don’t sign up, but are still excited to listen!

I emphasize that students need to practice what they plan to perform and make some time available to them to rehearse in school or in front of me before the big day.

On the day of the recital we have a discussion about the importance of the audience. We talk about what it means to be a good audience member: face the performer, have a pleasant look on your face, clap when they are done. We also discuss how to present yourself as a performer and I always have each performer bow while the audience claps. These are great skills for students to practice and understand.

My students and I have this all-Beethoven recital on his birthday, December 16th as part of our all-week celebration as we integrate Beethoven into all areas of our curriculum from reading and math to penmanship and poetry.  Consider inviting your principal to attend the recital, the music teacher, parents or other invited guests.  You could even prepare such a recital for another class or even the school.

Anytime is a great time to encourage your students to perform for the class.  But don’t miss the excuse to have one soon for Beethoven’s birthday this coming Friday!

~EMP

This is a modified excerpt from my new ebook Celebrating Beethoven in the Classroom. This resource has ideas for listening, literacy, math, penmanship and poetry all centered around Beethoven. If you are a fan of music, you need this for your classroom.

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I’m completing a online wellness challenge through my school’s health insurance.  Overall, I’m logging in my time exercising each day and weight each week, but each week there is also some other challenge.  One week it was to eat up to 9 servings of fruits and veggies, the next it was to keep a food journal and this week it is to stretch for at least 15 minutes each day.

Now, you may already know that I am a big fan of teachers taking care of themselves so that they can do the best job they can.  Usually my message is to feed your own creative side – get inspired, so you can be inspiring!  But I also believe this to be true with health.

While there are many things you can do on your own: join a gym, do an exercise video, go for a run, join a support/weight loss group; there’s one venue that’s right in front of you every day – your classroom!

One of my favorite things to do with my class is to move our bodies.  We do things like jumping jacks, slow motion “high knees”, shoulder rolls and stretching.   You may be able to imagine their surprise near the beginning of the year, when I first ask them to, “Stand up and put your chairs in.”  Our little, crowded room becomes a make-shift gym.  We do things that are as quiet as possible, (we work in a modified open concept school), and don’t take up a lot of space.  The kids usually love it!

This past week, during my own challenge to stretch for 15 minutes, I made the same challenge to my students.  In class, we are able to get 5-10 minutes done, usually in increments of 3-5 minutes throughout the day, and then the students write in their planner what time is remaining for them to do at home.

So far, about 90% of the class claims to be keeping up with the challenge.  I think it’s great!  My hope is to continue with these challenges that show the importance of exercise and health and start to build a feeling of independent responsibility to stay healthy and take care of our bodies.

In essence, our class has become a mini workout group.  It’s good for the kids and it’s good for me too!

Do you use movement and exercise in your classroom?  Would you want to?  Please share!

~EMP

image from www.valdosta.edu/~kfrucker/

Click one of the tags from this post to find related posts.

RED by Arash and Kelly This painting is one that is used in an example in the post.

This week, I wrote a guest post for Jessica Balsley’s website Art of Education.  She is an art teacher who provides many resources and ideas for other teachers interested and invested in arts education.  I decided to stay with my focus on arts integration and cater to her major audience – art teachers.  Here is the beginning paragraph.  I hope it will entice you to visit Jess’s website and read the rest which includes ideas to integrate visual art with other arts such as music, movement and poetry.

When a teacher hears about arts integration, they probably think of the general classroom teacher first.  Then, they may think of other teachers: special education, ELL, reading specialist, etc.  But arts integration can be implemented into the art teacher’s classroom too, creating rich, meaningful experiences….

READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE

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In Part 1 of “Poetry in Balance”, I focused on the importance of teaching students poetry appreciation.  But to have a good study of poetry, just as with the study of any art form, you must balance it out with creation.  This month I am requiring my students to write one poem each day in their reflection journals so that they can really work through what it takes to write poetry.

Poetry seems to be yet another art form that tends to be intimidating.  Often people think they have to be some magnificent, lyrical genius to produce good poetry, but what you really need is heart and a desire to be a little creative.  Over the years, I have come to understand that poetry is more than just rhythm and rhyme.  And to help my students realize that as well, I introduce them to a lot of different types of poems.

Here are a few:

Dada Poetry

This is one of my favorite types of poetry to introduce to my students and to adults who attend my workshops and courses.  DADA poetry was first written by artists and poets in Paris, France. They clipped words from newspapers, scrambled them and then arranged them in lines to form nonsense poems.

I use this idea with science vocabulary where you take the vocab words from a unit of study, throw in a few extra words from reading or some random story, mix them up, pull some out and start arranging.  Here is one example:

~water meanders~

flow with land

Elegant and Daring!

In celebration of Jazz and Poetry, try one of my favorite activities: Jazzy Dada which combines great jazz standards with this fun form of poetry.  Visit the post for the complete activity and reproducibles.

Found Poetry

Found poetry is a fun way to look at the world around us.  Essentially, you can find poetry anywhere!  As an example in my classroom, I took our math resource text and flipped through until I found some poetry.  I found poetry in the table of contents where it described the chapter and the topics in the chapter.

Essays on mathematical topics,

such as,

whole numbers,

decimals, percents,

fractions, data analysis,

geometry, measurement

and problem solving

A collection

Here is an organization to follow on Twitter to keep up with some fun things revolving around found poetry: Found Poetry Review.  They are “A literary journal celebrating the poetry in the existing and the everyday.”  There website is: www.foundpoetryreview.com Each day this month, they are posting a found poem.  You can read all the poems here at Crabapple-Moon.  It is really amazing to see what poems we really do have all around us!

Twitpoems

The idea of finding a poem in a tweet is something I’ve found from time to time as I read tweets from my PLN.   I am not the first person to think of this or coin this phrase, in fact @twitpoem is a Twitter handle and a hashtag.  Poems that can be tweeted are yet another way to think of poetry.  Twitter, in its confinement of 140 characters, can be an interesting vehicle for poetry creation.  Here’s one I read just the other day:

December 31, 1969 7:00 pm viaReplyRetweetFavorite

@

I am trying my own hand now at Twitpoems, creating one a day.  I can see this as yet another great way to challenge students to create interesting and thoughtful poems.

Blackout Poetry

This type of poetry was introduced to me last week while chatting online.

December 31, 1969 7:00 pm viaReplyRetweetFavorite

@

I haven’t tried this type yet with my students, but I plan to… I’ll let you know how it goes.  I can see it as being a great way to encourage some thoughtfulness and purposefulness to your work.  You could also tweak this idea a little to tie in summarizing.

Modeling

Before our poem writing time each day I try to model my poetry creation to the students.  Each time I will try a new form of writing poetry or stick with a favorite.  I do this on the overhead to help students see the process.  I often find that what ever form I use that day, often students will try that too.  Modeling is an interesting teaching practice.  Although you don’t want students to copy what you do (you do want them to find their own voice) following your model is part of their learning process.  I have to remind myself of that sometimes.  I have forced myself to model poetry writing this year in the hopes that students will learn from me, copy me and eventually work on their own.  (This is what teaching is about, after all!)

I have done and will continue to encourage my students to create limericks and couplets, parts of speech poetry and haikus.  But it is so important to introduce and challenge them to some different types of poetry as well.  Have fun with poetry! – that is the message I want to send!

~EMP

What other types of poems do you share with your students to help them create?

Related posts:

1. Poetry in Balance – Part 1: Appreciation
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