Creative Fun for Kids

Kids get a lot of screen time and some are in danger of losing the art of creativity. Now that the weather is a little less inspiring, rather than relying on electronic devices and movies theatres to inspire your kids, how about getting back into a bit of good old fashioned creative play?

Beware, when you suggest turning off the ipods, tablets, playstations etc, there will be a collective groan – it is hard to unplug kids. Every suggestion will be ‘lame’ or ‘boring’ or some such nonsense. Persevere. In the last school holidays, I took the money I was going to spend on a trip to the movies, and instead let the children loose in the craft section of the $2 shop for 10 minutes. The idea of the time limit was only to keep them focused.

We came away with glitter, glue, ice block stick, matchsticks, foam letters, wooden pegs, felts, pipe cleaners, cardboard shapes, coloured paper etc. 

We set up on the outdoor table (I did mention the glue and glitter…) and I gave them some suggestions to get going – making a house and a boat out of the sticks, paper planes, making a family of peg people with the wooden pegs and a puppet show out of the cardboard shapes (we bought ocean shapes).

What ensued was about three hours of utterly happy chaos, which was only interrupted to feed and water the tiny people. The very cool and intentionally unimpressed teens ended up as enthusiastic as their younger siblings and surprised themselves by producing some really inspired creations. Admittedly, the deck still sparkles with glitter a little in some light and I am still finding ice block sticks around the garden, but the kids remembered how fun it is to actually make things and get lost in tactile activities, rather than just reacting to a screen. 

Be bold, parents and grandparents. Your offspring will not be damaged in any way if the wifi is turned off for a few hours. They may discover talents they had forgotten all about, and end up much happier and calmer than they are after an afternoon in front of the goggle box!