Creative Challenge: Flowers

It’s time for another round of CREATIVE CHALLENGE MADNESS. Okay, so this isn’t exactly a madness hot spot, but the creative challenges always bring out the best in bloggers and generate a lot of enthusiasm. Oh, and this is the TENTH Creative Challenge. Dang.

I like them because I get a thrill from watching creative people reinvent and play with the same material in numerous ways. In April, little ones got busy creating and inventing with egg cartons, and this month our creative challenge material is flowers.

The challenges are open-ended in order to leave room for multiple interpretations. Projects can include fresh flowers, dried flowers, fake flowers, flower stickers, etc. The only requirement is that the post should document an activity that’s child-centered, child directed, and/or process-oriented. Adults can join in, but they shouldn’t lead the activity.

Why is this important?

The idea behind these challenges is to support creative thinking by encouraging children to initiate and follow through on their own ideas. Children who learn how to think for themselves, pose problems that they can solve, and explore ideas that interest them will be better prepared to deal with the challenges of an unforeseeable future.

I’ll give you a sampling of the projects in this challenge, and then you can scroll through ALL of them in the link round-up below.

Flower Stencil Spray Painting: Make stencils from fake (or real) flowers and spray them with paint. From Deborah at Learn with Play.

Fine Motor Flower Fun: Deborah from Teach Preschool shows us how to build fine motor skills and encourage close looking with magnifying glasses.

Outdoor Nature Collage: Melissa from The Chocolate Muffin Tree writes about her daughter’s self-initiated nature collages with flowers and leaves. In Melissa’s words, “This was my daughter’s idea.  I gave her some scrap matte board and white glue and she went to town! Busy for about 1/2 hour.  Lately it has been difficult to get C into making things and this definitely sparked her interest. If it is “her idea” she is more likely to create…maybe it is just those 5 1/2 year olds?”

For my contribution, my daughter collected flowers petals and leaves from the garden and pressed them between two sheets of clear contact paper. We have a ginormous roll of contact paper that comes out a lot, and she created a contact paper collage winter scene a few months ago and she must have remembered the process.

For this fabulous installment, I bring you twenty-five dedicated and talented kid bloggers whose children have taken the challenge to create something with or from flowers.

Rainy Day Mum *  Learn with Play *  Hands On: As We Grow  * Creative Playhouse  * Smiling Like Sunshine *  Growing a Jeweled Rose *  A Mom with a Lesson Plan  * Carrots Are Orange  *  Montessori Tidbits  *  The Educators’ Spin On It  *  Nurture Store  *  Kitchen Counter Chronicles    Experimenting Mom  *  Imagination Soup  *  Glittering Muffins  *  Famiglia and Seoul    Inspiration Laboratories  * The Golden Gleam *   The Good Long Road *  The Chocolate Muffin Tree  *  The Outlaw Mom *  Play Dr. Mom  *  Familylicious  *  Mum Paints Lives  *  Royal Baloo  * For the Children  *  Share and Remember  *  Red Ted Art

You can see check out each of their thoughtful contributions in this linky: