Kids love their art, especially if you give them free rein to express themselves and look the other way as they create some lovely, scrawly, scratchy art. And did I forget to mention messy? But like they say, there is nothing quite like coloring outside the lines to get the creativity flowing.
Children are natural creators, that is, they leave the right and wrong out of the process and instead focus on having fun, and immerse themselves totally into what they are doing. In fact, once they get going, it is hard to stop them. Even young, reluctant artists can be converted into crayon-wielding Picassos. One way to do it – I got my kids to play their favorite preschool games and they had to choose something from there to draw and color. These games usually come with bright, colorful graphics that kids love.
Children are natural creators, that is, they leave the right and wrong out of the process and instead focus on having fun, and immerse themselves totally into what they are doing. In fact, once they get going, it is hard to stop them. Even young, reluctant artists can be converted into crayon-wielding Picassos. One way to do it – I got my kids to play their favorite preschool games and they had to choose something from there to draw and color. These games usually come with bright, colorful graphics that kids love.
We have all done this when we were kids – a drop of paint that has been converted into a fine piece of blotchy art simply by folding the paper. The Japanese take it a step further by blowing on the ink with a straw and allowing it to form natural shapes. Kids love playing with this!
If I am not in the mood to clean up after the kids, I just hand them a Zen garden. These are very easy to put together. A tub, sand, and a few rocks are all you need. Kids can use a fork or chopstick to draw designs on the sand, which is their canvas. It is also a very calming activity. I also give kids little objects like leaves and twigs, shells, buttons and others that they can arrange on a blank piece of paper. Voila, we have art that can be dismantled!
If I am not in the mood to clean up after the kids, I just hand them a Zen garden. These are very easy to put together. A tub, sand, and a few rocks are all you need. Kids can use a fork or chopstick to draw designs on the sand, which is their canvas. It is also a very calming activity. I also give kids little objects like leaves and twigs, shells, buttons and others that they can arrange on a blank piece of paper. Voila, we have art that can be dismantled!
As kids get older, they can start keeping a journal. Instead of words, they can draw and paint how they feel or try to visually represent a memory. I have found that we become very good at manipulating words, but art is more revealing, more so in young children and when it is not a technique that has been mastered.