Creative Process.

In our house, we enjoy the "projects" -- having a plan with a process and a result. I think that having a plan is nice with kids - having all the parts and pieces ready and an end result in mind makes it easier to put it all together and they have something in hand at the end that they made. Of course with things like science projects and baking a plan is pretty necessary. But the freedom and creativity from just letting it all go - well, the end result doesn't matter, and yet somehow we always end up something fun and unique. So, in our house we also love to experiment, play, try it out, get it out and see where it goes - ideas and creativity rule.


This morning I taped wax paper to the table, pulled out slabs of air-hardening clay - and then the boys helped me dig through our supplies to see what else to add to the pile. They chose red glitter, rubber stamps, cookie cutters, pencils, a few odd kitchen utensils, and paint brushes. At first they were just stamping and digging and poking and ended up with blobs. After a bit, they asked for a rolling pin, and rolled the blobs flat again. A got the glitter and poured a whole container on the clay (so G did too). He took the rolling pin and rolled some more-which embedded the glitter into the clay. From there, G got a star cutter and began cutting out red glitter stars. His brother started to help (that thick clay can be tricky to get out of the cutters) and they soon had a dozen stars. A wanted to make them into ornaments and realized they needed holes. So, they pushed the end of the paint brush through each piece, and ta-da!


I love watching how they process, think, create, and work together - and they came up with an end result all on their own - stars to hang on the tree (we could have had lots of gray rocks!).

Perfect!