ISBN: 9788189491444    Publisher: Sanjay & Co Year of publishing: 2007     Format:  Paperback No of Pages: 96        Language: English

Be creative yourself- the most ordinary items can provide hours of creative play. Your blanket could be a curtain as you enact a bed time story to your two year old and allow him to do the same. All the pots and pans in the kitchen - your child's first mountain....start thinking?? There is no end to what you can do, but the one rule that you do need to follow is to let your child have as much freedom as possible in the area of creative play. Along with opportunities, make your home 'creative friendly' example, a two year old who has a low art drawer in the kitchen has a creative head start over the same-age child who has to wait until someone has time to get the crayons down from a high shelf! Provide positive reinforcement. Comments about creative work should be appropriate from the child's point of view and that relate to their own perception of the activity: Say "That looked like fun" or "You worked hard on this" instead of "That really looks like a dog, fantastic!". Try particularly hard not to interpret a child's work as a representation or evaluate your child's work. Remember the "doing" of an activity is always the important thing, than the finished product. AS A PARENT, you can have enormous influence on your children's creativity. Give your child encouragement for good tries and interesting ideas, appreciate their unusual answers and unique ways of approaching problems, give them the feeling that to be "wrong" is just another way of learning, and you'll be helping them towards a life of creativity.
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