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Creative Children and Technology - Raising Your Kids In This Age
Take a stroll through any toy store and you will be bombarded with walls and walls of toys that are just plain LOUD. These toys all require batteries, most have blinding, pulsating lights, some have well-known characters molded or stamped into them, and they all assault the senses and seem to turn our little ones into mindless zombies.
So, what happens to those of us who want to raise children with imagination and curiosity? We make a choice. We fill our houses with some good old fashioned toys to counteract all the technology our children will be faced with day after day. Let's start with the basics.
Shelves Filled With Books - Providing a house full of books opens up a child's imagination and feeds that inquisitive nature all kids have. When your child reads fiction, they travel along with the story to places far away and learn things they might never know about unless they opened up that book. For the child who has not been an eager reader in the past, a vast array of cleaver and interesting fiction can intrigue so thoroughly, get the reader so involved in the story, that the child forgets they're reading and soon becomes hooked! Non-fiction books are also important in every home. Oftentimes, parents assume that their pre-school child will only be interested in their "storytime" fictional characters and won't want to read anything that's non-fiction. The truth is that all children, no matter how young, are interested in the world around them and would enjoy stories about the way our world works and the people who live in our world. Non-fiction also serves as a lesson in research as your children move through their school years.
Legos and Building Blocks - Children of all ages are fascinated by Legos and blocks. When your child sits down in the middle of a pile of blocks, the imagination can run wild. You may notice that some of the most unusual bridges, towers, cities, or even monsters start to appear. For the very young child, the simple building of a tower of blocks, knocking it down, and building it again, can keep them occupied for hours, screaming and giggling the whole time. For the older child, building a city or complicated structure takes concentration and imagination. They're not only being creative, but also learning patience and improving their small-motor skills. After your child has completed a structure, sit down and ask about it. What's its name? What are the people like in the new city? Is the city on earth or on another planet? Ask your child to describe what a day is like in this new city. This can be a learning experience that's invaluable as well as fun.
Art Supplies - Bring out some crayons, paint, kid-safe scissors, paper, glue, and even junk mail, and go to town! Even sidewalk chalk can be inspiring to kids. Give your child a place to draw, cut, and paste and you'll have a busy, content, and creative child for hours. Vary the art materials often to keep your child interested. You'll never know what sort of art projects your child may enjoy creating unless you provide a lot of different things from which to choose. This does not have to be expensive. Reusing paper bags for drawing is one way to stretch a dollar when creating an art project. Look around your house and see what you have that could be turned into art. Newspapers and magazines headed for recycling may provide your child the inspiration for a new art project, and at a bargain. Please SUPERVISE closely if you don't want your child to have a self-induced bad haircut or attach the dog to the artwork!
Felt Story Boards - Telling stories is another way for children to use their imagination and creativity. A story board is easy to set up and use, even for the youngest storyteller. You'll begin by making or buying a board. To make your own board you'll need a large sheet of felt attached to a sturdy surface, like a painter's easel or even a wall. You'll find felt at craft or fabric stores. Buy a nice supply of colorful felt to be cut up into basic shapes for the younger child and more sophisticated props for the older child. A very young child will amaze you with their ability to create objects with just a few basic shapes. Have them tell you a story about each creation, as you may not realize what it is until they tell you! Your older child can research characters and props by looking through books and magazines. Encourage your child to not only design the characters and the settings, but to tell you the story, act by act.
Music and Singing - If your home has musical instruments, you are well on your way to sparking your child's imagination. Playing, writing, or singing all help a child open their minds to the magic of creativity. Simple lessons in reading notes can help a child imagine what music "looks" like, and not just what it sounds like. Listen to music with your child and try to see how many instruments you can pick out of the piece. Homemade instruments can be especially fun for the younger children. They love to walk around the house, marching to their own beat. Put some fabric over an empty round cereal container and they've got a drum. Throw some beans into a couple smaller containers, and you've got yourself some maracas. String some bells on a paper plate and your child has a tambourine. Or, take a walk outside and listen to the birds sing. Music is all around us.
Pretend Dress-Up - Pull out a big box of dress-up clothes, and your child's imagination will kick into full swing. Fill that box with discarded frilly dresses, fancy shoes, goofy blazers, and silly ties, and let the fun begin. If your closets are not full of this stuff, you may want to give the second-hand stores a look. I've found the more garish the clothes, the cheaper they get. And the gaudier they are for the kids, the better they like them. Watch after Halloween for the lowest prices and purchase a few costumes for your dress-up bin. When your children start throwing themselves into dressing-up, the stories of who they are and what they're doing start to develop, usually turning into a production of sorts in which you, the audience, is now invited to attend. Enjoy the show!
Doll-houses - There is something very enduring about a child making up their own little stories as they move their dolls around inside a doll house. It's so precious to see them play-act all the parts of the family members and it's interesting to hear their view of the world through their dolls. Decorating your dollhouse is also an added benefit and creates a whole other method for sparking imagination. Using some wallpaper scraps, carpet remnants, bits of lace, or any other craft item you have laying around, your child can imagine the doll family fixing up their house just like you do yours. This fun could provide your family with an heirloom if you put enough love into it.
Hand Puppets - There are all sorts of ways to create simple puppets. Your child can draw features they like on an old sock and it becomes a sock puppet. A pile of popsicle sticks can become a family of puppets when faces are drawn, cloth is glued on for clothes, and yarn is glued on for hair. You can even use an old pair of gloves. Just cut off the fingers of the glove and decorate to look like people, aliens, monsters, or animals. Your child's imagination will run wild if you just get out the box of materials needed. Then, it will be time for you to sit down and enjoy the show!
Kitchen Play - If you look around your kitchen right now, you'll probably see quite a few plastic utensils that could be pretty fun in the bathtub. Or, you may want to take a stroll through a thrift shop and pick up a supply of plastic bowls, cups, and utensils at a reasonable price. Fill a tub with water, add some plastic containers, and your child will play "cooking" until they get pruny. Add some bubbles, and they can imagine they're whipping up batter for a cake. Yummy!
Old fashioned play can most certainly spark a child's imagination. Without someone or something showing your child what comes next or what to expect, the story they tell and the games they play can surprise even them. This age of technology has produced a lot of answers, but your creative child will learn that it's not always about the answers... it's about the search, and the fun they had on the journey.
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