Easy And Fun Ways to Grow Your Child’s Creativity
Are you looking for some easy ways to encourage and grow your child’s creativity? Your child’s creativity will bloom when they are engaged in open-ended activities that require imagination, original ideas, ingenuity, and free expression. Read on to find some easy ways to grow your child’s creativity and have fun as well!
Explore open-ended activities
Music and Dance
When my daughter was young she sang and danced all the time and now her children love it too. Below are a few ways to use music and dancing to grow your child’s creativity.
- Make up and sing your own songs. My middle grandson loves to make up songs about shapes, animals, cars, etc.
- Take a familiar song and change the music or words to create a new song. Kids really love to take familiar tunes and make them into something personalized. For example: The song Bingo can be used for any 5 letter name. “There was a mom who had a boy and Mason was his name-o. M-a-s-o-n, etc. For 3 letter names, Jingle Bells. For 4 letter names, Are You Sleeping. Six letter names, use the Happy Birthday song. Just make up some super silly songs and have some fun together!
- Add musical instruments or make homemade musical instruments. Use instruments when you are singing or marching to music or your new songs!
- Dancing is a great way to enjoy music and encourage creative movement. Just put on some music and move! Make up your own dances. Use scarves, flags, or streamers to wave as you all dance. This is also such a great way to express creativity and to get up and get some exercise too!
Pretend or dramatic play
Kids love to participate in dramatic play. You will see them transform right before your eyes! We say that my oldest grandson may be an actor when he grows up because he loves it so much. Here are some things we do to provide for dramatic play.
- Provide a special box or drawer filled with some dress up clothes or props your child can use. You don’t have to buy props or dress up clothes. You can use anything you have at home. It’s part of imagining! But, if you want to invest in a few props there are many available that are very inexpensive.
- Encourage dramatic play by taking part in the imaginary situations the kids come up with. Unlock your creative side and really ham it up! Your child will love it. My grandson likes to be the hero and I always seem to end up being the “bad guy” or “evil queen”. Hmmm!
Building and construction toys
My grands love building! They have built Disney World, castles, towers, houses, neighborhoods, spaceships, vehicles, etc. A few great building toys are: Legos, Magna-Tiles, Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, wooden blocks, shape blocks, etc. (You can click each one to see the items on Amazon.)
Come on adults! Get down on the floor with the kids and build with them! They can learn by watching the way you design, create, and talk through ways to solve problems during the building process.
Creative arts and crafts
Drawing, painting, coloring, using modeling dough and other art or craft materials is another favorite. My little granddaughter is only two years old but painting, using Play Dough, or making a craft thrills her. Here are a couple of ways to grow your child’s creativity through arts and crafts. It may get a little messy but you will be amazed by the things they do!
- Put together a storage tub with all sorts of materials, types of paper, and art supplies. There are many art and craft boxes you can purchase already put together like this one from Amazon, but if you’d rather make your own selections for things to include click here for some good suggestions of things to include in your arts/crafts box.
- Add to your supplies some ordinary items that your child can use in their make and take playtime to invent or create something new. Such items as toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, boxes, a variety of paper, bottles, oatmeal boxes, Pringles cans, wood scraps, rocks, leaves, popsicle sticks, cotton balls, buttons, etc.
STEAM activities (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math)
Another fun thing to do is try out some STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) activities. Just Google Stem or Steam activities for your child’s age level and you will easily be able to find some fun projects that will get your kids’ minds and hands busy! Many activities require simple materials you already have at home. A few my grandchildren have loved are: making volcanos, clouds and rain in a jar, sink and float, making towers, bridges, animals, or other items with Legos or other blocks, growing crystals, doing experiments, and more.
Storytelling or writing stories
My oldest grandson has found a love for writing at six years old. You can encourage your child’s creative writing and storytelling. We have a post, Ten Storytelling Ideas to Grow Your Child’s Imagination, that provides lots of ideas for encouraging storytelling. If your child is old enough have them express their stories through drawing or writing. If they are young they can draw a picture, tell you about it and you can write it down. Older children can add letters or words to their story (it’s ok if it isn’t spelled correctly), and soon they will be writing their own stories!
Explore, imagine, create, express, grow!
I hope that in this post you have found some new ways to grow your child’s creativity and encourage imagination. It’s great to have kids do something creative every day. In encouraging them, you will find that you will also stretch your own creativity and expression.
Drop me a comment below if you try any of these activities, if there is more you would like to know about any of these ideas, or if there are ways that you foster creativity in your little ones. I’d love to hear from you!
Enjoy the fun!
Karen
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Building memories! These are great activities. And dancing!!!!! It builds so many skills!
I have done all of these with my children and now with my grand babies! You are right! Such great memories and they are having so much fun they don’t realize they are learning! : )
I love all these activities some I have used with my children and now my granddaughters!! I enjoy them as much as they do. I love seeing the little eyes light up!! Thank you, Karen!!
I am glad you like them. It is good to have plenty of ideas to keep them busy and learning! I love seeing how happy they are too! Best thing ever!