Posts Tagged ‘creativity’
Junior Reporter Club – even non-writers can participate
When my children were younger we belonged to a local homeschool group that had a weekly meet up in a church hall. It was just a drop in to give kids a chance to play with each other, and parents a chance to compare notes and get advice. To give the older children in the group some challenging activities, we created some clubs. We had a drama club, a book club, a rock club and a junior reporter club.
The aim of the junior reporter club was to encourage creative writing, collaboration and to show non-writers how they could also get involved. We had a couple of boys work together on creating the comics page, another little group worked on the puzzle page. A few of the kids wrote articles about topics they enjoyed and one child even took photos. All the kids collected ads and announcements for the classified page. (we even had a birth announcement for kittens!) After all the articles were collected and completed the whole group worked together to create the newspaper. They decided which article was to appear on which page and designed the layout.
This club involved all the kids in a variety of jobs to successfully create a finished project. No one noticed if a child had trouble reading or writing and no one was told that there was something they could not do. It was a great club that encouraged creativity, cooperation, self-esteem and achievement!
Homemade gifts – love and learning in one package
The holiday season can sometimes get over commercial, and focused on buying. Encourage your children to make gifts this year.
A homemade gift is not only appreciated by the person who received it but is a learning experience for the giver. Crafted tree ornaments, knitted mittens, wooden plaque and more not only allow children to give something that they created but also lets them learn in the process. A calendar of photos taken by your child is a useful, visually pleasing gift, and your child as learned photography skills, fancily decorated cookies makes a great gift and involves your child in a cooking class (math and science involved there!) Even just a homemade card can lend for a pleasant smile and a lesson in art. So have a creative class, and let your kids create!