Kids LOVE being creative

Creativity and children seem to go hand in hand. My kids love doing craft, playing shop and spending time designing and making 'products'. Grandpa even made my little girl a sewing machine and now we can design and make products together! He also made us a set of craft drawers to organise the craft ingredients.

Even though getting children to develop and appreciate artistic skills is a priority, it is often a creative challenge to think of what to do with kids to get them being creative! The problem is, what can you do to get kids learning to be creative that isn't too messy, expensive or beyond your own skill level.

Top five creative activities for kids

So here's my top five creative activities for helping kids be creative.

1. Drawing: Blank paper and colouring pencils is great fun for kids and adults. Anyone can start getting their kids into art just with a simple piece of blank white paper and a few colouring pencils or crayons. Printing outlines of flowers, animals, pirates and princesses is a great way to learn shapes and practice colouring in, remember the mindfulness colouring craze from a few years ago.
   
   
2. Water painting: Literally just using a bucket of water and paint brushes to paint on driveways, fences is a great no mess activity! If your kids just beg to do painting, but you are afraid of the mess, then watercolour painting is a much cleaner version that kids still really enjoy! It's all the fun of using paint, but without all the mess!
   
   
3. Stick collecting: Picking up sticks in a bucket when you are at a park or in the garden is a great activity for little ones. For bigger kids, then you can use the sticks on the ground to make shapes and people, or even to build into real models of things using glue, or twine. You can actually make stick people just like you might draw them! More ideas for little kids while you are out enjoying nature (like I recently blogged about) is to thread leaves on little twig, collect seashells or rock pool treasures like smooth stones. Then you can take them home and trace them, paint them or even learn to take good photos of them, see point 5! 
   
   
4. Paper airplanes: This is a great activity for kids, boys especially love throwing paper airplanes! Check out great these great instructions for making 'world class paper airplanes'. An extra version to make this game last longer is to colour and design the paper first, then make and fly paper airplanes. This activity is particularly amazing if you live in a two story apartment or house. Often the dads, uncles and grandpas love this activity too and can be a good idea for getting the men connecting with the boys!!
   
   
5. Photography: A smartphone is something that kids seems to just love! Getting them learning how to take good photos is a handy skill, especially if you can get them out in nature taking photos of trees, birds and gum nuts. Even though it's a balance of learning to use social media and smart phones with kids, you can check out my blog here on that topic for 3 suggestions to have a good balance.

I love seeing kids develop their creative skills. I hope you enjoy teaching creativity to your kids. I wonder what you do to develop creativity in your children? Do you have any great creative ideas you'd add to the list?

Love Krystol,

P.s. Remember, the beauty is in the detail!