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Learning Tip: Crayons and Creativity

By Susan Dichter

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 sixteen-year-olds were. There's something about color and crayons that appeals to the kid in all of us.

Be sure and stock up on the basics—pencils, paper, and crayons—in your house. Crayons and creativity go together. Being able to fill up those big blank pages with their own colorful fantasies is a pleasure for most young kids—coloring books are really not at all essential.

Every so often, however, kids need a gentle push in order to get their creative juices flowing. If that happens in your house, there are literally hundreds of creative puzzlers you might pose. For starters, suggest that your kids draw:

  • What grandma looked like as when she was a child
  • A hotel whose guests are ghosts
  • What they will look like when grown up
  • What the local playground would look like if it were not used by kids but by cats.

Before you know it, your kids will be pushing you—for more paper and crayons!

 

 

Susan Dichter wears many hats—mother, writer, former teacher, museum director and librarian; her books include Teachers: Straight Talk From The Trenches.