How can we be creative? Let me count the ways.

Well, it’s been a while since I posted. The winter has been a long one, and it’s not finished yet. We had yet another snowfall last weekend and the low temperatures create sheets of ice for the morning trip to nursery school. We’ve been spending a lot of time at home, playing with things with wheels and reading lots of books. We have built lots of train tracks and developed a few towns. What we haven’t done it a lot of craft activities. However, I started to realise, once again, that my ideas of creativity are not always the same as my childrens’ and that there are many many ways to use your imagination.

Two Boys with a Bus

Nursery school has been the biggest change for us recently. B’s first day was at the beginning of September last year and our schedule had to be worked around that. He was so tired every afternoon that he wasn’t really in the best mood for anything crafty. In addition, his main interest has been pretend play. He loves cars and trains and buses. He spends hours a week driving them around his room making up stories.

Little R is walking now and ready for anything! I have done some painting with him and we sometimes experiment with different materials, trying to build things with them. But I really haven’t done as much creative work with him as I did with B. Partly because he is one of two so there is always another little boy to look out for, who doesn’t like doing messy creative things, and partly because he is much more unpredictable than B. He sees his big 3 year old brother pushing the boundries and he copies everything. Not a great situation for experimenting with paint!

While I love to paint, cut and glue, B has been showing me how driving cars and building train tracks is also good for, if not better for, his creativity and imagination skills. Watching him work and helping him solve problems has been an education for me as he develops his language, refines his co-ordination and practices telling stories.

Introducing R to paint and glue is going to be on my list over the next few months. When he plays with his big brother he gets lots of practice pushing things around and making loud siren noises. I think we’ll add some colour to the playroom walls to reflect their big bright personalities.

So we have lots to do, and lots of opportunities to take photos and fill my blog posts with great pictures!

B with one of his favourite things - the Berlin U-Bahn

Painting on Paper Towels and an Opportunity for Mama to Practice Allowing the Toddler to Create his Own Art!

I love using different materials for painting. Kitchen paper towels are great for mixing colours and watching it spread over the patterns. So one lovely warm afternoon, I thought it would be fun to paint on the balcony. We headed out with kitchen roll, watered down paint, some brushes and a few other items to play with. I was looking forward to watching some abstract art develop, but the art was not what I had expected.

Our Equipment

Paint Mixed with Water

For a change of angle, I hung the paper squares from a piece of string tied between two chairs. Glass jars held the paint and we had extra pots around for mixing. 

Hanging Paper Towels

I was pleased with the arrangement and looking forward to seeing what B would do and the art he would produce.

He loved the colours in glass pots and having more pots to pour into. I had also put a large bucket of water outside so he made more and more and more (mess!).

Pouring

Poking

Splashing

He went on and on and on. Pouring, splashing, mixing all the paints into different tubs. But what about the paper? My wonderful hanging arrangement was being ignored! I really wanted him to try splashing the paint onto the paper, or flicking it, or dripping it, anything.

More mixing

More colours

However, he was having so much fun, I didn’t want to interrupt him. I hate to break his concentration.

Concentrating on pouring carefully

After a while I splashed a little paint on the paper myself. "Look at this," I said. He said, “hmm” and carried on with what he was doing. So I left him to it. The cars got involved as usual. And everything ended up in the bucket at some point. 

Paper Towels Empty of Art

Mixed Colours on the Floor

So even though it wasn’t the painting activity I had envisioned, he enjoyed a long afternoon playing with water and created some interesting patterns on the floor. I was disappointed that he didn't share my enthusiasm about the hanging paper, but he did:

• Mix colours over and over to discover more colours
• Pour liquid carefully, and sometimes not so carefully, into different pots
• Step over and around things as he moved around the area
• Explore the fundamentals of volume as he tipped paint from one pot to another