I read Amanda Soule's The Creative Family and while I didn't adopt many of the ideas it was a great jumping off point and helped me to view the world with eyes ready for creative opportunities. I was pretty good at this in the states, the boys began to know their way around a Michael's probably a little too well :) We had parks, forests, farms etc. to explore in ample supply. When we moved here to Timor I was totally stumped. There are only so many projects I could come up with that involved shells and sand ;)
Then Sawyer's teacher Ms. Naomi (who I ADORE) introduced me to the idea of "creations". She asked parents to start saving all our recyclables, scraps of fabric, cool stones etc. We then donate them to the school and they are placed in the back corner of the room referred to as the "creation station". There is a shelf with several different kinds of tape, glue and markers. To help the children learn math and the value of money they are given fake bills when they do something good (aka sit still during book reading, help others, open doors...) they can then use this money to buy items for their "creations". They have free reign of creation station to make whatever pops into their imaginative brains. Sawyer latched onto this immediately and it is bar none the highlight of his day when he can go to creation station.
What I LOVE about it is everything he makes is 100% original. Unlike the craft packets I would get in the states that had all the little pieces you need and directions for each step (don't get me wrong these are awesome), Sawyer decides what he wants attached & where. Each day Sawyer would come home with his "creation" and be so excited to show Finn and Evie. Finn then wanted to start making creations. We decided to start keeping 2 box's in the kitchen, 1 for school creations and 1 for home use. Soon we had to transfer it to one of the cabinets outside.
The boys love going out and picking random items and turning them into something else. Us parents find it amusing that our children behave so that they can buy "trash" sent from home ;) This weekend Sawyer wanted to make a Wall-E and after rummaging through our supplies this is what we ended up with:
Finn's was a bit more abstract, since "his color" is green
What adds to the fabulousness is that if they don't paint it when they are done with it and have moved on you simply pull the tape off and throw it back in the pile.
This afternoon we made daffodil's our of old egg cartons and rolled up construction paper.
I also love the feeling that we are getting every mile out of the items we purchase. I also think that Sawyer inherited my moms artistic ability. We were outside coloring with chalk on our drive way and for his age I thought his drawings were pretty great!
Finn on the other hand just likes to tell me what to draw and then add his extra embellishments.
Evie just tries to escape through our front gate.
In any event I just hope that I can offer my cuties as fabulously creative a childhood as I had and thought fellow mommies might need a new idea ;)
PS My mom let me know that the minute she saw the Spinning A Yarn necklace she made one for herself! This was the biggest compliment I have received in a LONG time.
