Creative thinking starts small. A creative thinker is always looking, observing, seeing. There are so many ways to get kids thinking and looking around and sometimes we make up little games to get things rolling.
I (Julie) teach Art in a local homeschool enrichment program in TN. I had my middle through high school art class try out our new Color Wheel Scavenger Hunt today. We are all getting spring fever and even I needed an excuse to get outside and meander in the grass.
The object of this exercise is to observe and find, in nature, objects to fill in the color wheel. Since there were not a lot of flowers beds near, I accepted written examples and drawn pictures of things that the kids saw and could not pick.
We discovered that some colors were really easy to find: yellow and green are everywhere right now. Orange, not so much. There were some dead leaves still around, so we did not end up having to draw buildings and cars in the orange slots! We also found plenty of red in a holly bush, but the sheer number of bees in the bush made us scream and run a safe distance away to write and draw the berries into the red section. Purple was very easy, there are so many low growing purple flowers right now. Blue was another hard color. Someone asked if they could write in 'sky' for blue and I thought that sounded great. There were also some blue-ish purple-ish flowers in the grass and we thought they might be blue enough :)
The kids brought their nature findings inside and arranged them in the correct color slots on their papers. I loved seeing the finished products and the different choices the kids made!
I am always impressed by their creativity and cleverness. Next week is our last class until September. I think we'll have an Art Party with some art games and such. 'Pin the Ear on Van Gogh' maybe?!
I learn so much from teaching Art, like how to stay creatively open and fearless and I hope that the kids learn the same thing from me.
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