Simple Ways To Spark Creativity

I share simple ways to encourage creativity with your kids using easy toys and basic craft supplies you can keep on hand. We focus on making creative time fun, low pressure, and sustainable while building skills that help kids at home and in school. 

• starting a weekly creativity rhythm that fits real life 
• go to creative toys like magnet tiles, LEGO, blocks, dominoes, and marble run materials 
• essential craft supplies like boxes, tubes, pipe cleaners, paper, yarn, and clay 
• shopping strategies like clearance aisles, dollar stores, and garage sales 
• making boundaries and cleanup systems so creativity does not become a chore 
• supporting focus stamina, fine motor skills, sharing, and turn taking 

If you have any questions or need a sounding board, you can message me on Instagram at BeTheirParent. 
If you found this episode helpful, follow Setup Automatic Downloads, Review, and Share. I'd appreciate it. 

Transcript

Welcome And Where To Follow

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hi, I'm Sheila and I'm here to help you be their parent. I'm going to be creating a series of videos that I will be putting on all the social medias where I have Be Their Parent, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube. And I'm going to be sharing ideas that you can do to encourage creativity with your kids. Now they're not going to be every day, they'll probably be once or twice a week. And then in between I fill in with other things. But anyway, if you're not following me on one of those, you might want to do that to get some ideas. Now, many of these things are things I have done in my classroom. And I know that they would be totally doable at home. And now some of them are going to be a little more involved and going to take some more supplies or more time. Others are going to be way more chill, easy, ready to go. But you can do all of it. I promise. I promise.

Easy Toys That Invite Building

SPEAKER_00 0:58

All right. Now I am going to suggest some toys that don't even have to be super messy with the arts and crafts aspect of being creative. So some toys you'd want to have on hand, magnet tiles or the magnet cubes. Both of them are great. There's a wide variety of styles available. Pick what you think would work for your kids. The magnet cubes, there are several different kinds that I've seen. I personally picked the primary colors for my classroom instead of the ones that look like they belong in Minecraft. Either one is fine. Whatever you think your kid will enjoy and have fun with, go for it. Obviously, Legos are a huge thing to always have on hand. Hashtag blocks that you can buy in the tubes at Target. I've used those in my classroom. I use those with our family that comes to visit at our house. The older elementary kids love it. I've done it with kindergartners in my classroom, and it's great. Really great fine motor skills and focus to be able to use them. Dominoes, you know, to be able to lay them out and then knock them down. Always fun. Cars, marbles, andor ping pong balls, because then you can make marble runs. Also with the dominoes, you could use them to knock over a marble that then rolls down. You know, think Rub Goldberg machines. Yeah, those are a lot of

Craft Supplies And Smart Glue Choices

SPEAKER_00 2:24

fun. Now, for craft supplies, you this will totally depend on how comfortable you are with crafts and also how messy you want to get, and how much time you have to do with your kids. But some really great things to have on hand are boxes, variety of sizes, cardboard tubes, think, toilet paper, paper towels, um, gift wrap tubes, those are all great, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks, different kinds of glue. Glue sticks are great for paper and such. Um, tacky glue works really well for the little bit bigger things that you don't really want to use the glue gun for. And then obviously, a glue gun is really great for the really big items that you really need to hold well. Um, there have been times, even in my classroom, I've used a little bit of both, a little bit of tacky glue with the glue gun, and that really helps to hold it in place. Um, I did let my students use glue guns fourth grade and up, and I just bought the low temp guns that they used, and then I used um a high temp glue gun for the ones I did for the kids, and I did it for every class, even the big kids that could use the glue guns. There were always a few that didn't feel comfortable with that, and that's totally okay. I was happy to jump in and help them with that. So um, some variety of glue is always a good thing. Yarn, fabric, paint if you're willing to deal with the mess. Um, plastic lids, like from water bottles, pot bottles, those types of things, small containers, plastic containers are great. You do want to clean them out well, um, especially if your kid is one that really likes to hang on to things that they've made. You don't want it to have any food in it because you don't want to attract bugs. Um, that goes even for boxes. Um, I've always had people that want to give me the oatmeal um canisters, which they're great. That's a cylinder, that's a great shape, but there was no real way for me to really clean it out to get all of the food out. And I just never knew if my kids took the these things home and then threw them away pretty quick or if they held on to them for a while. So I just didn't use them because again, did not want to help attract bugs, if at all possible. So um I that's just my two cents. You might have the it set up with your kids that you make something, you enjoy it, take a picture of it and toss it. Great. Go for it. It's all good. Um, construction paper andor cardstock clay. If it's something that you want to last, then you could get the air dry clay. Um, or if it's just something you just want to make and then put it away and then be able to pull back out. Obviously, Play-Doh is a great way to go.

Budget Friendly Ways To Stock Up

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Now, this is not something you need to go out and just go crazy buying. I know as we're nearing back to school, people will be buying school supplies. So I get it, you don't want to have to go out and buy a bunch of stuff. So don't just pick up some things over time. Check the clearance aisles, both at Walmart and Michael's Hobby Lobby. They all have little clearance sections. You just have to find them. They're usually towards the back of the store, um, and pick things up from there. And you can do it seasonally, and then you would have things for the next season, right? Um, so that's a great way to go. Dollar stores have been having a lot more um crafty things of late that I've noticed, at least at our dollar store. Um, so that would be a great place to look. And then garage sales, you just never know what you might find. There might be a really great treasure in there that you would work perfectly for your kids. So now I'm giving all of these ideas.

Make Creativity Fun Not A Chore

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Great. And bottom line, this is meant to be fun for everyone. This is not meant to be a chore for you. This is meant to be something you enjoy doing with your kids. So pick the activities that you would enjoy as well. That way it can be this family bonding time and it'd be really enjoyable for everyone. And it's gonna take some time to maybe establish this creative time and a system for it of how you set up, where you set up, and how you clean up afterwards. So that's gonna take some time too. You could always just pick one day a week, that that's your creative day. And I'm not saying do these big projects, you know, once a week, maybe do it once a month, but on the other days, that's when you pull out the magnet tiles and maybe the pipe cleaners to do together. That's a fun thing to do because the pipe cleaners will stick to the magnets. Um, just finding those times that show some creativity.

Focus Stamina And Kid Personalities

SPEAKER_00 7:06

I'm just hearing more and more from teachers that our incoming kids, especially the youngest kids, are having a hard time having sustained um focus to complete a task if it's more than like five minutes. So, given these types of things that spark creativity, that they would then focus on for a good stretch of time, is really gonna help them to build stamina that will help them out in school. So just keep that in mind. Um, but you will find what works for you and your kids. Also understand your kids' personalities, especially if you have more than one child that you're doing this with. Um, some of them are not gonna be into the arts and crafts. They're that's not gonna be their jam. And they may kind of, you know, not want to. So that's when you doing it with them really comes into play to help them out and give some guidance. Maybe it's just they can't think of something, they want to do it, but they're like, I don't even know what to make. So if you give them an idea or a theme to work in, then that might help them to be able to figure out what they want to do, and then they may just cooperate and do it. Now, there's gonna be some kids that absolutely love all the arts and crafts, and they're gonna go crazy and you're gonna be prepared for the mess. And that's okay too. But as long as you're prepared for it, and or you really make some boundaries around it and set up a system that you know, we do it in this area, and then we're gonna clean it all up when we're done, and all of that will help you out in the long run. Okay.

Skills Kids Build Plus Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 8:40

So finding ways to encourage creativity in your kids is gonna help them far more than just playing creatively with magnet tiles and Legos and making some amazing something out of a box, right? That's fun and that's great, but the end goal here is to help them with problem solving, sharing, taking turns, fine motor skills, and so much more. So embrace the idea of having some creative fun with them, and you might be surprised in how much you enjoy it and look forward to it as well. If you have any questions or need a sounding board, you can message me on Instagram at BeTheirParent. If you found this episode helpful, follow Setup Automatic Downloads, Review, and Share. I'd appreciate it.