Don’t Force Creativity
This is a compensated review from BlogHer and LEGO ® DUPLO ®
I never understood what it meant to experience the world through a child’s eyes until I had a child of my own. Since giving birth three years ago, every day has been like living through a lens through a little person who is constantly experiencing his first. Everything I learn to do as an adult pales in comparison to what he learns, my paltry skill-building has no match for the level on which he grows. It has been amazing watching him learn to walk, learn to call me mom, and now, mom-mom-mom-mom-mom.
drawing outside the lines
One thing I have learned is that I cannot force creativity on him. I cannot give him a palette of finger paints and expect that he will create a rainbow. And really, can I expect an active, independent three-year-old to listen to instruction when it’s hard enough getting him to eat more than a plate of dino-shaped nuggets?
With my son’s creativity, I have to just go with it. He bursts out unexpectedly and sometimes I feel like I’m racing to catch up, to latch onto what he says and explore it. The other day he was shuffling his feet across the kitchen floor, moving from one end to the other. Without looking at his mother and father, he said, “I’m a train! Choo-choo!”
If I see him drawing like mad, I ask him if there’s a story there. Sometimes he doesn’t want to talk and I have to accept it and let him work on his own. Artists. Hmmph. Other times he’ll let me know which scribble is Mommy (usually the round one) and which one is Daddy and which one is his cousin who lives 30 minutes away.
When I see him absorbed with his DUPLO blocks and placing them in a hodgepodge of situations that are not shown on the box, I don’t tell him how it should be. I let hi play on his own terms, creating his own world the way he wants to. Unless he pulls me into his playtime and wants me to be the conductor, I am just an appreciative audience member.
When he dances to music and he practically yells, “DANCE MOM! NOW!” I obey immediately. I get up and move with him, performing sillier and wackier moves that delight this little human. It’s so freeing to be with someone who doesn’t judge me either, and who allows me access into his world to experience it with him.
My son is an exuberant child and his constantly growing brain is a gift. I could never have imagined that I would be so lucky to have a little boy who loves life. As his parent, I remind him, “I am on your schedule. I am speaking your language. You don’t have to prove anything to me.”
You can read other DUPLO stories on BlogHer.com special offers page. I’m sure I’m not the only one raving!
Time’s up! Thanks for entering!
LEGO DUPLO is offering a $20 LEGO gift card to one Kirida reader! To enter for a chance at this prize, leave me a comment below, sharing how you get creative when stimulating development in your kids. Alternately, you may leave a link to your post on your own blog in the comments below. The contest will begin at 9:00 a.m. (PST) December 14, 2009 and will end 8:59 a.m. (PST) December 21, 2009. Make sure that the e-mail address you leave is valid so I may contact you when you win.
Rules:
1. No duplicate comments.
2. You may receive an additional entry by linking on twitter and leaving a link in the comments.
3. You may receive an additional entry by blogging about this contest and leaving a link in the comments.
4. This giveaway is open to US Residents, aged 18 and older.
5. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail.
6. You have 48 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.
Please see the official rules here: Official rules
Winner to be chosen via the Random Number Generator.
We do a lot of coloring, painting, play doh, reading, making up stories, pretend play, and of course building with legos.
I teach kindergarten. My students as well as my grandchildren ALL love legos. They build with them every chance they get.
I have been homeschooling my son since kindergarten. He is currently in the 6th grade. One thing I did when he was younger and loved when I read the same book over and over and over again, was to change the story up a bit. Sometimes I would use his name, change a location in the book to a familiar place that he had been to, etc. Now that he is older and almost as tall as I am, it can be daunting, yet possible to still get creative and stimulate development at the same time. He has a love of system legos and his creations are out of this world. I encourage his stories about the different creatures or vehicles that he has made. The use of the English language can be so rich when a child is given “permission” to ask a lot of questions and get answers to them, even if it means looking up the words at the same time and learning together. So it always amazes me when he is telling a story and he uses words well beyond his years, but because we took the time to learn about said word.
My daughter is 3 as well and she is getting a lego table for Christmas. I can’t wait to live through her eyes once again as she builds countless creations. It is such a joy.
To stimulate development in my kids I took a hard sided small swimming pool with a slide from Wal-Mart and filled it with noodles. The kids can slide into the noodles or bury their treasures under them. The kids just love playing in the noodles. I was thinking a great alternative to noodles could be small Legos.
My favorite creative thing to do with my three year old son is to play with his silk scarves that we dyed together one cold day, with CoolAid. You can pretend to be anything. sometimes, we are pirates, some times, we are ghosts, chasing each other all over the house, sometimes we use them to play hopscotch, or wrap and animal. They have been tons of fun. He also loves his duplos, and I love that he makes up his own things — I do the same (I am an art teacher after all). It drives our 12 year old niece crazy that we do not follow the directions!!
Love the Legos! Started with Duplo, and now my 13 year old has the Lego Robot!!! But I think the best thing I ever gave my children is… BLANK PAPER!!! Open ended, imaginative, their ideas are endless. Nothing on blank paper is ever wrong. To this day, my kids spend their extra “fun” money on sketch pads - filling every inch with wonderful ideas, inventions, dreams and stories.
Recycling is a wonderful process. However, there is waste in turning a plastic bottle into a plastic… anything else. ReUSE is a lot better for the environment… and more fun!
Use empty containers, things that would be sent to the recycling, as building blocks! Give kids paper towel tubes, pretzel tubs, empty Nesquik boxes. With some glue, tape and supervised scissors, you’ve got a building medium rivaling LEGO blocks!
http://twitter.com/jbbdude/status/6733916447
We do “cooking” projects where we’ll mix a bunch of ingredients (not necessarily food) to create recipes. My son loves to come up with names for his recipe creations.
My six year old son has Asperger’s syndrome. He’s always been an exceptional puzzle builder; he’d rather do that than play with other people. Now that he’s older and in school, we’re trying to find ways for him to be comfortable interacting with other children. Lego’s are a natural extension of puzzles, and something he can do with other kids and share his passion. Television provides no interaction for him, it’s too passive. He needs face to face with other people to learn how to expressive himself. We’d love to get him his own set to have at home.
Just found your blog!
Like you, I think the best way to stimulate creativity and allow it to grow is by not placing limits or rules on it. What feels good creatively to me may not feel right to my 3 year old. For instance, we just made a gingerbread house together. The section I did is symmetrically perfect, patterns everywhere, colors matching. The part my son did is a perfect reflection of his creativity - no patterns, no straight lines, no order…and he thought it was so beautiful and was so proud. And so was I.
Thanks for the chance to win the gift card. He LOOOOVES his Duplo blocks. We play with them every day.
Well, Legos are by far the favorite creative toy my boys love–and I love to build things too with them. I second the blank paper too! My printer paper is usually what they run to when they want to make restaurant signs, spy agency signs, paper airplanes, original comic book pages, books, crafts, etc.
my son is a lego nut!!
I have a 6 yr old and 2 yr old. The 6 year old has the biggest imagination - he loves to dress up and play pirates or super heros, build forts, etc. He’s always loved motorcycles, bicycles, skateboards and build tracks & skateparks with expertice! He loves his legos - any kind - and especially likes the ones that my parents saved from when I grew up. All the pieces are there and a whole town has been created at Grandma’s house. The 2 year old is following right in his footsteps! I love it!
I find that my kids will be creative on their own. I keep the lower cupboard of the hutch in my dining room full of paper, crayons, blocks, Legos, Playdoh, paints, etc. The kids are constantly in there, getting supplies and making me the most wonderful pictures, statues, stories and more. As an adult I envy their spontenaity and imagination!
I have tried to buy my kids other things than Lego’s. It is very hard for me. I always find myself asking, “Why would I buy them a toy that can only be one toy?” Lego’s have created the basis for most of my creativity and now I am working to pass that on to my daughter and son.
My son is very hands on. He loves to color, paint, build, glue, tear paper, work with wood, etc. We have large amounts of crayons, markers, plain paper, construction paper, drawing paper, painting paper, paints of all types, and many, many craft items.
I think my kids are most creative when just left to their own devices. Where the creativity flows with clay, legos, art work, scrap books, photos, etc. my favortie creativity is when they are just talking about what they think things should be like in the world.
There is a young man in our family who is wildly creative and we foster that in as many ways as he chooses, be it art or legos.
We look for and take advantage of teaching moments whenever they present themselves. It’s when just living life that we learn the most, so if we can teach in those moments, even better!
We introduced both of ours to Legos and they love to play with them. We will challenge them to build simple to moderately complicated things that we have around the house
To get my kids to try things they might not otherwise we make it a family competition. For example, we might arrange an obstacle type course and each take turns timing each other. Of course, my husband and I usually do something silly while performing ours and the kids end up laughing and will sometimes do their own funny thing along the way. They have so much fun, they don’t even realize they are playing with a purpose :).
On the verge of turning forty and I’m still a HUGE Lego fan! So when my twin sons were born last year I grabbed every Lego Baby product I could find and now we’re adding Lego Duplo to the mix. So far ‘creativity’ consists of me stacking bricks and the boys tearing them apart. Though they also enjoy figuring out which shapes fit through which holes in the Lego Baby shape sorter bucket lid (Lego Baby 5461).
Inspiration through reading and hands on projects.
art & legos are great ways of being creative together
I have three boys and I tell you the legos have helped them to be more creative as my middle boy has been making his own halloween costumes and making branches into bow and arrows and my boys play well together building , painting, coloring and interlocking these legos.
When my kids were little we would drag in our 33-gallon bucket of Legos and dump it in the middle of the living room. The four of us would gather around the mound of blocks, wheels, smiling plastic people, propellers, etc., and ‘dig in!” I had discovered when my kids were tiny that not only did they talk and share more when I was on the ground with them, but their creativity soared when I wasn’t scurrying off, as we busy moms tend to do. I wish I would’ve thought to take pictures of all OUR (I got pretty creative myself!)inventions!
I like to involve my kids in daily activities around the house. They love helping in the kitchen, pairing socks, and solving problems in creative ways with me!
I, like you, basically let them be! We provide the materials, they provide the creativity. One of my sons especially enjoys building things out of cardboard, so he gets all of our scrap cardboard as well as duct tape, hot glue guns etc. (he’s 10). My daughter enjoys coloring, so we have coloring books, crayons etc.
I get creative by sparking creativity. During the holidays we go to the craft store and I let my daughter decide what she wants to make for people. This year completely on her own she decided she was going to make stuffed door draft animals. She picked fabric,filling, eyes and accents and went home and she did great characters. They are long and have legs and tail on one end and a head on the other. She did Christmas Mice. They sit along the door to keep drafts away! I love the stuff she comes up with. Thanks for the chance!!
mogrill@comcast.net
I am fairly confident that Legos play a HUGE role in development for kids’ brains. And I agree w/you, that letting them create - while adding the occasional “oooh” and “aaah” every now and then, expands the reaches of their minds…my boys (and of course my kindergartner) STILL play w/Legos and they are in 7th and 5th grade! In fact, one of my 5th graders BIG xmas gifts is a Ewok Star Wars Lego set.
We’re just getting to the point where Wombat is starting to express himself, and right now it’s all about dancing to the music!
[...] out how I try to inspire Nathan’s creativity and enter to win a $20 Lego DUPLO giftcard! The contest ends Monday, 12/21, so you’re one comment away from winning. You don’t have [...]
I think this is a great giveaway!
Our son would really like the duplo sets. spsmithsp@hotmail.com
I tweeted! http://twitter.com/dandygiveaway/statuses/6837807541
Our son would like the duplo sets spsmithsp@hotmail.com
My son is still very young, but I try to get creative with him by offering him different activities. We sing, we play peek-a-boo, we play with toys. I try to mix it up so he’s not bored.
I tweeted:
http://twitter.com/couponlover16/status/6839872965
I read a lot of wordless picture books to my son, Andrew. Then we write the words. SO FUN!
Our creativity actually comes through Lego play. Currently most of our Legos are being used to represent the movie Wall-E. He and his dad have built MANY Evas, Wall-E, the cleaner guy. It’s pretty cool to watch him create with Legos. It’s the one toy he’ll play with for awhile by HIMSELF. (YAY!) We’re even going to Legoland pretty soon!
I try to engage my kid when he’s using his imagination - ask him questions about the stories he’s living, and help when his lego-making gets stuck!
We get creative with Legos. They are my son’s favorite toy and it is fascinating to watch him recreate things with Legos. He once built a snow plow and then made some adjustments to make it even better. I sometimes give him problems to solve with his Legos to offer some inspiration for his creations.
I think the best way to encourage creativity with your kids is just to provide the opportunities. We always have art supplies out within their reach as well as legos, duplos and blocks.
RIght now, given his age, we do a LOT of reading.
I have 11-month-old twin boys. I get creative by trying to get down on their level and crawl around with them, do “baby”-wrestling on the floor, play “tag” or “peekaboo” (and watch them play it with each other, shrieking with laughter!) and see what the world looks like from their point of view.
I let my son help around the house, he especially loves to help in the kitchen and often we mix things together because he wants to just to see what happens.
we try to expose the little ones to lots of different influences
I agree about letting them play “outside the box”. We have kept heavy cardboard crates and they can be turned into anything! Art supplies are out and available; and while not in use consistently, can be used in a frenzy sometimes. My little girl just got her first big box of the “tiny Legos”, while still enjoying the Duplos. We also have some of the discontinued “Quattros”–those are great for young toddlers.
We do lots of science experiments to keep things fun, but educational. Love it!
Our creativity happens a lot in the kitchen. The kids like to bake, so we try to come up with different stuff to bake.
Another thing we like to do is make things with puff balls. Kids like to outline characters on blankets, or create a new creature with them.
We pick up leaves around the neighborhood, put them in our treasure pail (a plastic beach pail), bring them home, and glue them to construction paper. I squeeze on the glue, since her 2 - year - old hands are not strong enough yet, and she places the leaves on the paper.
We have a low art shelf with art materials available to use whenever a creative mood strikes. Right now there are feathers, glitter glue, and buttons that are the current rave.
We love legos. My boys are 15 and 12 and we still “play” with legos. We have contests to see who can build the most creative _______ (whatever subject we choose).
I find that my children are best stimulated by providing them and environment that allows them to be creative and free-thinking, which is shy Legos are such a wonderful toy! We have lots of blocks, shape patterns, Legos, play dough, crayons, blank paper, paint, etc. and all items are readily accessible by the children when they want them - I don’t keep things locked up! I try to support and assist but I don’t direct or tell them how to do their creative endeavors! We are always busy with something.
my 2 1/2 yr old and i made a gingerbread house tonight…it was messy and gooey…but to see the smile on his face…plus when he found out the icing wasn’t “glue” he was even more pleased as we told him he could eat some..it was a joy to see him design with the candies
I would say the kitchen is a really good learning place. There are so so many things a kid can do..From basic colors and naming foods to measuring ingredints..I let my 4 yr old load the dishwasher and practice counting at the same time.
I tweeted:
http://twitter.com/tatum810/status/6884622680
I love legos. They are especially calming to my oldest of 11 who is bi polar and needs a “fiddley” toy that is not a toy that he can just be alne with and create with his own style
THANK YOU
My son is 1 year old so we do a lot of discovery with textures. He has a water/sand table. We paint with sponges, fingers, forks, etc. I am also in the process of creating a noodle bin…(A container filled with uncooked noodles and all different objects and toys for him to play with and discover.
my son also enjoys playing boardgames with me and has to use his imagination for some of them. His favorite area at daycare is the lego area.
My children and now my grandchildren release their creativity with the thanks of LEGO.
I let my kids create where ever they want. My son especially has a wonderful imagination. He is so many things through out the day. I leave everything at kid level that they can create with. It sometimes leaves me to bend over for measuring cups etc but it’s SO worth it