Encouraging Creativity

*This is my first post using Windows Live Writer.  (Thank you to Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations for the suggestion).  I’m still getting the hang of it but I definitely think its a much easier way to write blog posts.*
During our camping trips, Georgie had a great time coloring and doing activity books.  It made me realize that I don’t bring out art supplies for them to just play around with often enough.  Having to keep things locked up makes them harder to get to so I tend to just forget about them.  So I set up two bins.  The idea was to have some things I could pull out for the kids to do on their own that didn’t need constant supervision.  I wouldn’t leave them alone for more than a minute or two but these are things that they couldn’t make too much of a mess too quickly.  The first one is a general art bin except for no paints (since paint can make a BIG mess very quickly).  Included in this bin (all washable) are markers, crayons, colored pencils, regular pencils, stampers, stencils, scissors, Cricut cut-outs and glue.   They were also provided with a bin of various colors of paper.  I made the separate cubbies by taping together plastic cups which I then stuck in a plastic tote.

Of course, messes are relative.  As usual when Vicki gets a hold of markers and stampers, she likes to color herself.

But they did manage to do some nice pictures as well.
Vicki’s:

Georgie’s:

The second bin I set up was for stickers.  This is for when I have something to do that may keep me from checking up on them quite as often (think dishes and laundry) or when I really don’t want any mess but still want to give them a chance to be creative.  I set up cubbies with all different kinds of stickers.   To start we have: paper stickers and an assortment of foam stickers – patriotic, Easter eggs, alphabet, shapes, glittery butterflies and general shapes (moons, suns, dinosaurs).   Each in their own individual cups (I don’t expect them to stay that way).

The kids had a great time with these.   Notice the paper bag I taped to the side for the garbage?  Notice the little pile of sticker backing paper on the floor?  Vicki didn’t quite get the idea.  But, picking up sticker paper is a lot easier than scrubbing marker and crayon off walls and furniture.
I am planning to pull out our paints more often as well.  I printed off a bunch of magnet pages for Vicki to do with our dabber paints (or stickers) while Georgie is working on his work.  Many of our planned History and Science projects will also involve lots of painting, molding and gluing.  I just can’t wait.
To see what others are doing visit Preschool Corner & 5K too at Homeschool Creations.