cultivating creative minds

by Holly

O.K., now this may sound like a BIG title for the blog today, but just bear with me. I have been thinking a lot lately about summer. My boys are doing the end of the school year countdown (4 days to go) and I am starting (Yes, you caught me... just "starting". Insert panic here.) to wonder what we are going to do with our summer. One of our missions here at YeLLoWMeDaiSY is to bring out creativity in our kids. Yes, it is easy to invest in electronic do-dads and big ticket fun to keep them occupied. And sometimes asking them to shut all that off and just play is like pulling teeth.

One of my families favorite activities to do together is go camping. I don't necessarily like all the work that goes into it, but I always love the outcome. Usually about a day into it, we all get into a groove. A creative groove. We start really looking at the nature around us and we get inspired. Here is an example... 2 Christmases ago big man got his favorite Christmas present ever from my sister-in-law. A sketchbook. Here is the inscription on the inside...

While big man likes to draw, at first I think he was a bit intimidated by all blank pages inside. It has been 2 years now since that Christmas, let me show you some of his treasures...

That's one tough cowboy. And this one...

Grrrrrrrr. And one of my favorites...

This was during a camping trip (he always brings his sketchbook along). And now the pages are almost full and his is about ready to move onto a new sketchbook.

So, a big thank you to my sister-in-law for showing us that creativity doesn't have to be complicated. It can be as easy as a book of blank pages and a pencil.

This summer I am committing to creativity. Simple creativity (Hopefully, you won't find any project over 5 steps). I am committing to play forts, nature walks, sketchbooks, and probably even some interesting culinary creations. We will play this summer. And I am pretty sure that if I invest in this like I intend to, my kids are going to have their best summer ever. And we will all have some amazing memories of the crazy things we did all in the name of creativity.

Happy Thursday!