The other day I sat in on a high school English class in which juniors were using colored markers to diagram sentences. For some, the grammar lesson may have been dull, but it was remarkable how attached to the markers those 16-year-olds were. There's something about color and crayons that appeals to the kid in all of us. Be sure to stock up on the basics (pencils, paper, and crayons) in your house. Crayons and creativity go together. Being able to fill those big blank pages with their own colorful fantasies is a pleasure for most young kids—coloring books are really not essential. Every so often, however, kids need a gentle push to get the creative juices flowing. If that happens in your house, there are hundreds of creative puzzlers you might pose. For starters, suggest that your kids draw: what grandma looked like as a child; a hotel whose guests are ghosts; what they will look like as grownups; what the local playground would look like if it were used by cats, not kids. Before you know it, your kids will be pushing you for more paper and crayons!