Creative Picks No. 4

Students are back on campus, our dorm is buzzing with electric energy, and I started back to teaching. Needless to say, sleep and coffee are my friends this week 😉 I have a fun assortment of sketchbook inspiration, parenting articles, education wisdom, and maker projects for you today.

• Since we’re coming up on October, an inspiring month to hunker down and make things, you’ll want to print the much anticipated 😉 October #tinkersketch art challenge list. New this month is a printable cut-apart list to paste into your sketchbook.
• Explore the autumn season with these fun and simple LEAF-inspired art projects: paint critters on leaves, make leaf-shaped coffee filter sun catchers, make negative leaf impressions with a spray bottle and little ink.
• If you could use some maker space inspiration for your home or school, head over to our ongoing series: Tinkering Spaces: Makerspace Tours and Interviews. Related, if you’d like to share your space with the TinkerLab community please fill out this form.
• If you love art history (or you’re confused by it), and want a good laugh, someone created a funny guide on how to recognize famous painters and it’s surprisingly accurate (that’s the actual article title!).
• Do you like funny cat memes? This is right up there with things I wish I thought of and made time for: Artist Amelia Rizky recreates the most famous funny cat memes in watercolor. Here’s Amelia’s Instagram feed if you’d like to make checking in a regular part of your routine.
• For my teacher friends and parents who like a meaty education paper, How to Teach Critical Thinking (5/2019) is a worthwhile read. For the Cliff Notes version, read this article.
• What makes the Scandanavian school system so renowned? This article explores 3 secrets to Scandanavian Innovation in Education, and I promise you that you can start to integrate these core concepts into your home or school tomorrow.
• In light of the important international climate change conversation, here are three earth-focussed activities you can try with your child: make your own recycled paper, make a fairy garden, build and then create in a mud kitchen
• Three ways to raise empathetic kids so they become compassionate adults. Not a super long read, and worth checking out if it’s a topic you’re also interested in.
• Want a fun way to motivate your family to do more acts of kindness. Good and Kind has a list of over 100 acts of kindness you can try. Search by time and type of activity, and earn badges along the way.

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p.s. Have you been inspired by anything this week? Tell us about it in the comments and we may share it next week.