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Encourage Creativity

November 3rd 2011 00:55
9 Ways to Encourage Creativity


Creativity is not a frivolous trait. Children raised to be creative thinkers are also often excellent problem solvers and have an innate trust in their abilities. Your child may not write a Pulitzer Prize winning novel or star on Broadway, but then again, you very well may have a budding creative genius underfoot. Regardless, the benefits of creativity are wide-spread. Here are 9 ways to encourage creativity.

1. Ask lots of questions. Let your child ask questions. Indulge your child's curiosity by letting them pursue tangents and explore new subjects.


2. Tell stories. Encourage your child to come up with alternate endings to favorite stories or movies. Before finishing a storybook, see if your child wants to guess the ending. Imagine new characters or put the same characters in a different setting. Retell these stories at bedtime, while cooking dinner or driving.

3. Allow time and space to create. Exploring takes time. Resist the urge to give short cuts, or exclaim that an idea won't work, let your child try. Unless of course their idea is dangerous to herself or others. If you can designate a corner for art work that can be left out, great.

4. Be silly. Singing and dancing along to the radio or making up your own silly tune is the best way to encourage the same freedom for your child. Even if you are not a natural extrovert, you can let your silly side show every so often.




Read more here - 9 Ways to Encourage Creativity
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Kids Art Show

August 2nd 2011 13:28
Better than a lemonade stand, a kids art show can be a fun way to promote creativity, earn money and build a sense of community.

Host your own with the following tips for a One Dolla Holla, Fifty Cent Center or Quarter Show Tips

Invite participates. You probably have a basic group in mind. It could be simply your own children or expand it to their close friends, a street in your neighborhood or make it a club event. Scouts or sports teams can pull off an effective quarter show.

Suggest sale items. Compile a list of items that are acceptable for the show. This can be decided upon as a group, or set in place ahead of time. Baked goods such as cookies should be wrapped ahead of time and ready to go. Handfuls of trail mix in baggies were just as popular as brownies at our show. Sun catchers, dream catchers, home made note cards and bookmarks were some of the offerings. Simple crafts, home made jewelry and little bouquets of flowers kept the show pretty, while they were there. We had a table for gently used toys and a place to buy hot dogs, lemonade and chips, for a quarter of course.

Read on for more information...and why a single set price is best.

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A is for Always

April 2nd 2011 12:52
For 26 days in April (minus Sundays) I will be posting a blog for each letter of the alphabet.
"Sylvie's word of the day"
I am all for challenges, so when this was dangled in front of me in my writers group, I grabbed it.

Hundreds of people signed up, literally 1037 people. Go ahead, Sign up here, if you dare.

This mini adventure is fairly mundane, but with 1000 bloggers jumping in, stalking each other, chatting away everyday, something good is bound to happen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Always is my word of the day, in honor of ALWAYS learning. Life is too ....oh wait, I'll just quote Henry Miller, he said it best.....


"develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music, the world is simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself." ~Henry Miller

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Cranberry Thanksgiving

October 2nd 2009 18:39
Cranberry Thanksgiving written by Wende and Harry Devlin in 1971 is one of those time honoured books that lends itself to family traditions - in the case of Cranberry Thanksgiving it is Cranberry Bread.

Cranberry Thanksgiving is the story of a young girl named Maggie who lives with her Grandmother near a cranberry bog in New England. The book includes some interesting characters and colourful illustrations and the story takes some interesting twists and turns, demonstrating that looks can be deceiving. It even includes Grandmother’s Famous Cranberry Bread recipe for you to bake at home.

DLTK features a fun Thanksgiving mini book for kindergarten children to colour as well as Thanksgiving crafts to do including pilgrims, turkeys and pumpkins. And those in need of a pumpkin template then look no further - Preschool Express features pumpkins in three sizes for you to copy and cut out for your crafting needs.

Crayola features a Happy Thanksgiving page to colour as well as a fun turkey craft.

The fun dolls Eddie and Amy which often come to our aid also feature Thanksgiving clothing and for those doubly organised, Halloween costumes as well.

It is is a time for giving thanks and hopefully the poems over at Thanksgiving Day manage to convey the spirit of the holiday.

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Don't Discount Second Hand Stores

September 18th 2009 17:35
Investigating a new area to live, I started checking out all the stores - second hand stores included and noticed what bargains they had to offer particularly in the way of kids educational computer games and books. We managed to make some great savings and many of the books and cds were priced at $2 or less!

The Little Bear Preschool Thinking Adventure normally sells for between $10 and $15 and we picked it up for $1. A definite bargain!

We found a lot of Scholastic and Disney titles and there were purchases that kept both my daughter and I very happy.

Stores like Value Village (Canada) also have a 50% off day so it is worth popping in just to see what they may have in stock. Cheap is good but cheaper is better!

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Speakaboos

June 2nd 2009 02:38
The Speakaboo website served a great purpose this week as it gave us an online version of The Ugly Duckling to read and view as well as a follow on activity, but the site itself holds an interesting premise.

Coming soon, as the site announces, is a record your own story section which will allow kids and parents to record their own voices reading (or singing!) their favorite story, song, or nursery rhyme. Anything that aids in the improvement and creation of kids wanting to read or listen to stories is a great idea.
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Ugly Duckling Week

May 31st 2009 07:02
This may sound like some poor joke but it is the book to which my daughter has chosen to base all of her crafts and activities this week. Again being a popular story like The Three Liltte Pigs, there is no shortage for either crafts or activities we can do together.

We have various Ugly Duckling and Swan pictures to cut out and glue together, although my favourite is this 3D duck. We are unable to source the plastic eggs although are going to amend it slightly by using small paper cups which should do the trick just nicely


[ Click here to read more ]
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Send In The Clowns

May 24th 2009 02:59
Admittedly I am not a fan of clowns, preferring to see them at children's parties rather than adorned all over my wall. So the inclusion of Clown Week into our schedule took me a little by surprise to say the least.

Loonette and Molly from the Canadian Series, The Big Comfy Couch, are a particular favourite in our house so at least I had a starting point on which to base our activities. And in particular I love the concept of a 10-second tidy which we are going to incorporate with a clown based cleaning chart
[ Click here to read more ]
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BBC Stories

May 14th 2009 00:50
CBeebies, the children's BBC website, has a great range of stories to watch and read along with and will easily inspire your children.

Currently my daughter's favourite, she enjoys listening to the stories and selecting her own depending on her mood. The stories are excerpts from the children's programs featured on the BBC channel such as The Tweenies, The Story Makers and Charlie and Lola


[ Click here to read more ]
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The Three Little Pigs

May 12th 2009 04:39
From one classic fairytale to another, this week's activities surround the ever popular children's tale, The Three Little Pigs.

Being such a popular story, it seems that there is no shortage for inspiration on the web covering all kinds of activities, colouring pages and ideas to complement the story


[ Click here to read more ]
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Jack And The Beanstalk

May 3rd 2009 10:22
My daughter was very excited that today marked the first day of Giant Week aka Jack And The Beanstalk Week. Having changed her mind at the last minute from her original choice of The Ugly Duckling, she had me do some last minute website searching in order to come up with some creative ideas.

Thankfully the BBC had an online adapted story about Jack and The Beanstalk which she enjoyed watching which led us into a discussion about Real or Make Believe. Tina's fun little online game came to our aid just to refamiliarise her with our discussion


[ Click here to read more ]
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The Golden Egg Book

April 24th 2009 09:21
Whilst we may be a little late for Easter, next week's topic is "bunny week" as my daughter now constantly refers. We are basing our activities on or around The Golden Egg Book originally published in 1947, written by Margaret Wise Brown.

The story tells of a little bunny who stumbles upon an egg. The bunny becomes curious as he can hear something moving inside the egg. His imagination runs wild and the impatient bunny tries to shake, push, and even jump on the egg in his attempts to break it. But all his efforts go in vain as the stubborn egg refuses to budge. The mystery unravels when the egg begins to hatch and much to the bunny's surprise, a little duck comes out. The bunny and the duck then become friends


[ Click here to read more ]
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Free Online Children's Books

April 13th 2009 02:26
As an expat abroad, I am always searching for new stories to share with my daughter.

The Children's Library is a non-profit organisation offering a wide variety of free paper books to be read online including stories such as Axle The Freeway Cat, Blinky Bill, Cinderella and Mother Goose


[ Click here to read more ]
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Little Mermaid Week

April 9th 2009 02:07
We are taking a theme from one of my daughter's books and are basing activities and stories throughout the week on the theme of her choice. Her choice this week - The Little Mermaid - apt for someone who currently wants to be a mermaid when she grows up!

Doing a quick search on the internet so far we have uncovered sheet music and lyrics for a number of the tracks including Part of Your World and Under The Sea
[ Click here to read more ]
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