I was pleased to hear from several readers after my last post which showed pictures of my grandboy. Summer is definitely the time for family visits and time with children. After the initial excitement of the visit wanes, children may be left wondering what to do.

My daughter shared a blog, http://artfulparent.wordpress.com/ , wherein the author talks about things she does with her child and the neighborhood/friends craft group. It’s interesting to see the author’s excitement over involving the children in artful activities. She provides links to other blogs that may be of interest to you.

I remember planning art activities for my children. We would go to the library and pick up books on how to make your own glue, paper mache, etc. I distinctly remember a recipe for making glue out of dryer lint. It made a horrible mess, but we did it!. I think the biggest mess we made was when we tie dyed. One of my piano students happened by that afternoon and she took off her tennis shoes and dyed them. I was a bit concerned when her Mom came to pick her up, but she took it better than I would have.

My initial concern about children’s art projects stems from a deep belief in the power of creative thinking. I believe we must take care in nurturing children and involving them in artful activities without curtailing their own ideas. If the art activity teaches a technique rather than a product, I’m all for it. Yet, if the goal is the production of a slightly varied piece like the example provided for the child, then I might be against it. We want children to think for themselves rather than merely copying. That’s why a blank piece of paper is so much better than a coloring book. While there is nothing wrong with copying to learn how to do something, let’s don’t call it creativity. (By the way, if the purpose of working in a coloring book is to learn small motor coordination, it’s a good thing.)

Research tells us that creative thinking is alive and well in young children until about first grade when it begins to wane a bit. We see it ebb and flow throughout their years, but know that it must be nurtured in order to thrive and become valued by the child. Adults who tell the child they want him or her to think creatively and then give them a pattern and color chart to follow are not modeling what they are saying. I remember when my son was four and his teacher gave him a pilgrim to color for the classroom bulletin board. When he colored it purple, she grabbed it and threw it away telling him that pilgrims can’t be purple. “Mama”, he said, “I’ve never seen a pilgrim and I didn’t know.” I don’t think that teacher had ever seen a young, irate Mother like me before, but we did get things straight!

Amabile says that creative thinking results in that which is novel and appropriate. That purple pilgrim probably wasn’t appropriate, so we might not call it creative in our adult schema. For a child, however, who had never seen or colored a pilgrim before, it may have been.

It seems that the bottom line is clarity. Let the child learn a technique, such as paper mache, by copying, but call it copying or replication. Then ask the child to think creatively and use the paper mache technique to create something new and different. Call this creative thinking. AND if the child isn’t interested, let him be. Creative thinking can be developed in many ways that do not involve arts and crafts. Some kids just don’t want to make things and that’s OK. Out future creative scientists may just be out working on their bikes rather than inside handling tempera paint!