May 2012

What is Tinkering?

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Tinker /ˈtiNGkər/ n.  to make small changes to something in order to improve or repair it (MacMillan Dictionary) You may have noticed this quaint little word that’s at the heart of my blog title, and today I’d like to talk a bit about tinkering. I have a fun tinkering challenge up my sleeve (come back for that next week!), so consider this my introduction! What is Tinkering? The definition above suggests [...]

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Easy Peasy Rock Painting

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This is such an easy project and my kids (almost 4 and 20 months) have gone crazy for it. And I have to confess that I really enjoyed it too. Very addictive. I chalk their enthusiasm (and mine) up to a couple things: Painting or drawing on a 3-dimensional surface is a fun challenge The [...]

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Coming Soon: Flower Creative Challenge

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If you’re not already surveying your garden, market, or neighborhood for good flower picking, now is the time to put flowers on the brain for the next creative challenge.  Every two months I host a Creative Challenge for kids with the introduction of a material and an invitation for children to create with. The objective of these challenges is to enable [...]

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DPS Sketchbook Challenge, Made Easy

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Are you participating in the DPS challenge? You can join at any time and your sketches can be as basic or complex as you like. My friend, Aude, told me that some of the entries I shared last week intimidated her. These weren’t her words exactly, but that was the gist of it, and I thought I needed to [...]

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How Climbing Trees Builds Creative Thinking

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Have you ever climbed a tree? Do your kids like climbing trees? This has never been high on my list, even back in the nursery school days, but my 3 year old N has climbing in her soul and will climb just about anything: rock climbing walls, trees, jungle gyms, furniture, fences, etc. She seems [...]

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Cooking with Kids: Butter and Rosemary

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Do you like to cook with your kids? It’s not always the easiest thing for me to do; we have a tiny kitchen and limited counter space, but I try to find ways to integrate my kids into the kitchen routines when I can. Why? Because cooking, experimenting, and learning about the interaction of ingredients [...]

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How to Use a Sketchbook to Boost Creativity

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Have you ever kept a sketchbook? Are you on the DPS (Double Page Spread) journey with me? Have you thought about joining, but you haven’t started yet? When I introduced the DPS Challenge, I talked about the importance of starting a visual journal practice as a way to nurture your own creativity. But did you know [...]

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Explore Modern Artists: Paint like Jasper Johns

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Today on Explore Modern Artists, we’re taking a close look at the work of American Artist Jasper Johns. For the art historians out there, Jasper Johns is technically a contemporary artist, but the piece that my four-year old and I looked at falls into the time-frame of modern art. I spent years working in modern and contemporary art [...]

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How to Press a Flower

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Do you have a bounty of flowers in your garden? Have you ever wanted to press a flower, but weren’t sure where to start? Pressing flowers just requires a little bit of patience for the flowers to actually dry, but the process is quite simple and doesn’t require a lot of fancy equipment. Start by collecting [...]

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