The Creative Table Project

Highlights from The Creative Table Project

If you’re not familiar with the Creative Table Project, it’s an Instagram treasure trove of real world inspiration for any parent, caregiver, or teacher who’s looking for ideas that boost kids’ creativity or who wants to share snippets of their life experiences as inspiration to others. This week’s post is a great example of how I like to set up creative invitations that encourage creative and independent thinking for preschoolers.

There are currently over 1500 Creative Table tags on Instagram so of course it was hard to choose which ones to share with you. This small collection from the past couple weeks is lovely for the breadth of ideas. Following each image is the name of the the person who shared it and their description of the image. Enjoy!

Note: If I’ve shared a photo of yours against your liking, just shoot me a line and I’ll take it down promptly!

Creative Table Inspiration…

It only seems to fitting to begin a Creative Table roundup with a young maker who’s invented her own drawing table. My heart is melting. From Jackie at My Little Bookcase. For a related twist on this, set up an invitation to draw under the table and see what happens.

I offer my children something similar to this hand-drawn coloring page set up all the time, and it’s always a hit. While it may seem close-ended, the parameters set forth by the black and white design give children a starting place to come up with unique ideas. From Jen at Mama Papa Bubba

This set-up is so inviting. I want to dive right in to drink homemade lemonade and make paintings with the leftover tissue paper alongside Stephanie from Spanglish Spoon. For ideas on how to set up a tissue paper collage activity with a toddler, you might also enjoy this simple set up.

If you’ve ever spent a lot of time and thought setting up an activity, only to have a child take it in a totally different direction…this one from Cassidy at Freshly Planted is for you. Know that you’re not alone, and that moments like this are signs of your child’s ability to think for him or herself.

We got a sneak peak at the next Kiwi Crate, and the paper making project was an instant favorite.

I have received countless comments from parents with younger children who get into art materials, pull everything off tables, and generally make it difficult for older siblings to put on their maker-cap. This image from The Iowa Farmer’s Wife is here to remind you that it’s a phase that will quickly pass. And that you might actually miss these early days.

If you ever thought about introducing your child to the work of well-known artists, setting up a sensory table to help them dive into the physical world of the artist is brilliant for little hands.

More ideas on exploring modern art with kids over here.

This lovely open-ended invitation to make Mother’s Day gifts is full of so many possibilities. Don’t you want to jump right in? We once made soap for mother’s day and it was a huge success.

Since today is officially Earth Day, I thought we could end with an easy and workable nature-based mosaic from our friends at the Children’s Creativity Museum.

See all Creative Table posts here.

If you’d like to play along, read these guidelines and then tag your Instagram photos with #creativetable. And here’s a look at our last roundup for another view of what’s possible.

Are you on Instagram? Instagram is one of my very favorite tools and you can find me at @tinkerlab. I hope to see you over there!

A question for you…

What’s on your creative table this week?