Wonder Wands

"Children... bring a passion to life at which many adults marvel. If given freedom, they play, experiment, question, make enormous messes, take risks, explore freely, and then apply what they have learned to the world by...creating anew." Ginger Carlson Child of Wonder: Nurturing Creative and Naturally Curious Children

I am amazed by all the things my kids enjoy doing; the more we do, the more we seem to be discovering how much there is to do. Most of these activities center around creating things, which has been undoubtedly influenced by two books whose ideas I've been experimenting with lately- the Creative Family and Child of Wonder. It might also be because my children, maybe all children, come wired to be creative and they feel happy when they get to do that. Dieter F. Uchtdorf said "the desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul."

I am also amazed at how exhausting it all can be. When I get in the zone it's pretty fun, but afterwards these messes can really get under my skin. Sometimes I feel like we spend almost as long cleaning up afterwards, and I have to work hard not to get grouchy. I try to stay motivated by remembering how much my kids enjoy their projects, and how it seems to lift their overall moods throughout the day. Once the cleanup is over it doesn't seem too horrible and I just remember the good stuff.
I love that my kids are starting to get invested in the projects, that they think them up and choose the items to work with. Last week Caleb asked if we could make a wand during our "Creative Play." We talked about what it might look like, and wound up cutting out a cardboard star, wrapping it in tinfoil, bending a coathanger into a stick, wrapping that with an old dress I had marked to give to the thrift store (Caleb liked the colour), before Caleb wanted to paint it (whew! just so you know, we did all that over 2 hours). Julian turned his star into a necklace which he beaded with beads I recently got from IKEA on pipe cleaners. Jack and Christian wound up painting some old jeans I have. None of it was planned, it just was all done with materials we had within arm's reach. I love Amanda Blake Soule's idea of repurposing items to use for craft projects. It works every time!


According to Carlson, it's not the end product that matters (which is funny- Caleb didn't wind up playing with that wand much) it's the process of creating that helps kids develop problem solving skills and the ingenuity they need to weather the transitions they will experience throughout life. How many times have I tried to make something with my kids but just wind up doing most of it, as my kids contribute little. In the end it looks pretty, but what's the point if I did it all?