Give birth to your child’s creativity

Fostering creativity in your children demands a lot of creativity on your part.

When I taught kindergarten, I was amazed at how many children were already critical of their creative abilities. We live in a culture where only the best is good enough. It’s easy to see why children are inclined to give up before they start on a creative project.

I think both children and adults tend to think people are born talented. We lose sight of the fact that for centuries; people enjoyed creating products for what they were rather than to compare them to what is considered the best.

· In today’s society, only first place equals success.

· Often children equate being able to finish a project quickly with being good at it. Speed becomes the measure of success.

Therefore, we are dealing with quite a challenge in keeping our children enthusiastic and willing to take the risk of learning new creative skills (defined as innovation in the workplace).

We need to find ways to emphasize the joy of doing a creative activity to help them see that improving skills in any creative endeavor is a life long process worthy of the time and effort.  Is there a new activity you can learn with your child?  As you learn, talk about your creative thinking aloud and cast all fear of failure aside.  By mistakes people have made, new inventions and services come to fruition every day.

Happy learning and growing…

Favorite toy

Now that Christmas is over and the excitement of all the new “stuff” is dwindling, my husband and I are faced with an all too familiar sound – “mommy/daddy will you play with me?”  It doesn’t matter how many “things” he wanted and received from Santa… he still wants us the most!

Hooray!  Yahoo!  Whoopee!  Woohoo!  I am something money can’t buy and after five years I am still his favorite toy!  It isn’t that I am jealous of the “consumable toys” he constantly asks for in a – I HAVE GOT TO HAVE THAT – kind of way.  No, that isn’t it at all – what I am, is thrilled that television and print advertising hasn’t turned him against what really matters in life – PEOPLE and EXPERIENCES!

As an early childhood educator I know that relationships are far more important to developing a child’s abilities academically, physically, emotionally and socially and now my child has once again proven this research to be true.  Over time we will play with all of his new toys but I will always be his favorite toy!

Off to think up our next learning adventure… early education is the key!

Rotating toys to keep play fresh and fun

After all the gifts are opened on Christmas morning it will be time to go through what your child already has in his play arsenal and make room for the “new” stuff.

What should you do with all of the old toys? Store at least half of them out of your child’s sight. During spring cleaning, exchange some of the toys on the shelf and in the toy box with the “old” toys your child played with before Christmas.

What is going to happen? Your child will look at them as “new” again. It will be like Christmas all over again. When the toy has truly been through all the cycles it (and your little one can stand) consider giving it to your local thrift store if it is still in good condition.  Donating the toys to needy children is a great learning experience for children of all ages.

I am spending the next three days making room on my child’s toy shelves for all of Santa’s loot. I like to put the toys away without him watching so he doesn’t even know what toys he is missing. It makes it all the more fun when the toys are re-introduced in the spring.

Mommy’s Christmas list

Daddy is going to get you a puppy, a Shitzu one, for Christmas. Tried not to act unappreciative and mad (because the last thing I need is another mouth to feed and living being to take care of) but realized I needed to be positive and start planting new seeds for what mommy REALLY wants for Christmas in Rivers’ ear.  I told him all about mommy’s FAVORITE things and what would make mommy so HAPPY at Christmas. We again went to Wishpot to make mommy’s list just like we did yesterday with Rivers’ list.

The minute daddy walked through the door from work he started listing my favorites and talking about how happy mommy would be if she got a new ring,  a trip to the spa or a new Amazon Kindle.  He reminded daddy that it is better to give than receive and asked daddy to take him shopping for mommy tomorrow.  My heart fluttered and I wanted to kiss all over that sweet boy.  From age five he is learning about how to make a woman happy:

1. shop early

2. ask her what she wants and buy it

3. put her before yourself

Letters to Santa

I need to write a letter to Santa right now. He’s making a list and checking it twice and he is going to find out who is naughty or nice.  I need to tell Santa to put me on the nice list and I need to tell him what I wish for at Christmas. Off we went to make the list…

First, we talked about what he would like to have and then we searched for these things on his favorite toy/games websites – toysrus, amazon, wal mart, ebeanstalk and back to basic toys.  We agreed that Santa has a lot of children in the world to see so we had to limit our list to no more than 12 things.  I figured between 4 Aunts and Uncles, 3 sets of grandparents, Santa Claus and mom and dad this was just enough to split up between the gift givers.

Of course our list was over 30 things in the beginning but he had no trouble taking some of the things off once I told him that he and Santa had to share with the other children.

*I told him which items were really expensive, kind of expensive and affordable.  He still picked mostly expensive things but Santa knows where to find generics – wink! wink!

*We visited www.wishpot.com to create our gift list to share with our family and friends and with Santa

*Next we printed the pictures of our 12 most favorite gifts and glued them to special red and green paper to send to Santa’s workshop at the North Pole.  He signed his name and  mom wrote a note about the cookies we are taste-testing and cooking for him.  He also asked daddy to write the note about being on the “nice list.”

*Finally, we addressed the envelope with Santa’s name and sent it right off to grandma and granddaddy’s house. 

Grandma and Granddaddy said the most amazing thing will happen very soon.  They told Rivers to keep checking his mailbox to see if he gets any cards.  Apparently, granddaddy visited Santa Claus at the mall and learned that he writes letters to boys and girls on the “nice list.”  I can’t wait to see what happens when this mail comes!