Andrea has written a really interesting post about creativity in the context of parents’ questions about how to encourage their children’s creativity. Her post really triggered a lot of thinking about broader issues for me that I started to write…

On an unrelated note: When you said “You are expected to cook and present a meal, but you are not in a kitchen. Furthermore, you only have 3 kitchen tools to work with, a camp stove, and $13 worth of food.” I thought “I did that for several months!” I’m guessing you could probably say the same thing. But it’s still a great analogy – I am far more inspired to cook interesting food now than I was when I had those limitations.

There are two ways aroudn this, for any passer-bys: use really good thick white glue for children’s crafts. Kid’s glue is only good for paper. Another way around is to pick up a few of the very cheap and low temp glue guns, which older children can use quite safely.

I also wrote in an email to someone that my grandmother had lots of craft things for me to use, but we had to be really frugal with it. Like powdered tempera paint. She made it so thin, so that it would last longer, that the colors were next to useless. Which I didn’t realize until I was older, saw how CHEAP it was, and noted that I had literally inherited the twenty-year-old containers of paint powder.

And I promptly mixed it up thick and bright, and let the kids use the rest of it up. Why do we think it is a waste to use up things we buy to … use up and make something with?

In reply to JoVE – for our oldest’s last Christmas present (she was 2.5 years old), I started a ‘craft box’ for her – one of those huge plastic ‘chests’ on wheels. I bought loads of different types of paper and card, and went to a local toy-shop and a local craft shop and bought loads of things for making collages – coloured feathers, beads, foam letters etc. etc. I bought loads of glue, brushes, paints – everything I could find for the budget we specified. It’s been the best present we’ve ever given her and has been added to over and over again over the last months. The girls get it out most days to do something or other – some days it’s just drawing, some days it’s painting and some days we go for the full-blown sticking activity. Glitter’s usually a favourite! As they’re so young, I always do it with them, but they get to choose what and, within reason, when they do it. It’s so delightful to see as our 18m old is doing things that my oldest could never do at that age, because simply because she has opportunities, having an older sister, that my oldest never had. When we move, I plan to start increasing our stash with free collectables eg. milk bottle tops; yoghurt pots; anything I can find that I think the girls might enjoy. It’s huge fun for all of us and their purely self-directed collages and pictures are so much more attractive than anything we, or anyone else, has tried to get them to do!

Will be linking to this post, Andrea

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And corresponds with so many of my beliefs, for reasons I didn’t even know until I read them.

This has sparked other thoughts and I think maybe I should write about it on my own blog… Thanks for raising this question though. It is a really good and important post.