Introducing… The ‘Book of Ideas’ Project!

The Book of Ideas Project

The ‘Book of Ideas’ Project gives kids an outlet for their ideas, encourages new thinking and establishes a meaningful creative practice for kids.

What exactly is a ‘Book of Ideas’?

A ‘Book of Ideas’ is a way for children to express their interests, curiosities and explorations of any topic of their choosing using whatever materials they would like.

So far we have seen Idea Books with story ideas for the goal of publication, song writing ideas for piano playing, a journal capturing trip events, drawing books, comic books and even a book on how to get ideas!

An Idea Book can be about anything! Science experiment documentation, song lyrics, outlines for a play, stories… etc.

There are no rules only 3 single guidelines:

  1. Write and/or draw your ideas.
  2. No idea is too crazy.
  3. Have fun!

In fact, it doesn’t even need to be a book! These boys decided to use large poser paper to write the backstory to their play using Post-It notes to hide secret messages!

Idea Book Example

What inspired The ‘Book of Ideas’ Project?

This project was inspired by a series of events that happened within a couple of days of one another while also researching the work of Internationally renowned expert in the area of Talent Development, Sally M. Reis.

First, a bit about the first even that inspired this project! About a week ago I saw this post on my Facebook feed…

The Book of Ideas inspiration

… with the following caption:

“What did you do at school today?”

“Well Mom, I decided to create a big book of my ideas. As I come up with new ideas, I am going to write about them and add them to my book”.

This seriously warmed my heart! I though about this that entire day… I wondered…

“What if all children got into the habit of recording their interests? Hmm…”

Then, the very next day another friend posted this link to Facebook: How to raise kids to be creative thinkers, with the following caption:

“Your job as a parent is not to say, ‘Tell me what you want to be when you grow up.’ Instead, be aware of what they gravitate to, and encourage them to do more of it. Pay attention to what sparks them.”

I watched the video and was further inspired by the notion of truly observing your child’s interests and supporting them. In her video and in the TED.com interview, Jane Andraka was asked to talk about why she encouraged her sons to keep “idea books”:

It was all Luke’s fault. He generated so many ideas that he was making himself anxious. Was he ever going to be able to accomplish these ideas? Was he even going to be able to remember all these ideas? And I said, “Here’s a dollar journal. Why don’t you just start writing.” He would sketch and then go, “But I don’t know how to do that.” And I’d say, “That’s fine. Get the idea down and then, as you learn more, you can reflect back.”

All the while, I have been researching the work of Sally Reis and reading her book (written with Joseph Renzulli and Andrea Thompson), called Light Up Your Child’s  Mind: Finding a Unique Pathway to Happiness and Success. A book about cultivating the unique talents and strengths of every child.

Light Up Your Child's Mind Book

Strategies for developing your child’s gifts and talents are provided in the book. One strategy that stood out to me was putting together ‘Progress Portfolios’: a simple system to record achievements, tangible proof that something is happening and progress is actually being made. They call this the Total Talent Portfolio, a living breathing collection that takes shape gradually. They also discuss an at-home adaption where the focus is on creative learning projects that the child has embarked on and is interested in continuing to investigate! The parent is referred to as the ‘guide-on-the-side’ to help support and assist their child in this discovery progress. It’s a beautiful thing, really.

Why keep a ‘Book of Ideas’?

A ‘Book of Ideas’ is:

  • an outlet for ideas
  • encouraged NEW thinking
  • establishes an idea system creativity practice

Plus:

  • It’s fun!
  • It allows parents a glimpse into the minds of their children, including curiosities and interests. What are they passionate about? What sparks them?
  • It provides kids record keeping of their questions and ideas for further investigation.
  • It allows you to monitor your child’s progress and your child to monitor their own progress.

We hope you’ll join us by encouraging the little people in your life to keep a Book of Ideas! For more information and to see the celebration o idea books shared, visit our ‘Book of Ideas’ Project page!

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Best,

Lina

What it takes to Keep Creativity Alive

I’ve been thinking a great deal about this blog and what it means to me. It started with a passion to explore ways to nurture creativity in children. As I’ve researched and explored this topic further, I’ve discovered that it’s about that and so much more. So many ideas race through my mind about what it means to be creative and what makes us creative and for that reason I decided to encapsulate all of those thoughts in one place. Below is my graphic representation of all the things that come to mind when I think about what Keeping Creativity Alive is all about.

What is creativity about for you? Tell me, did I miss anything? 

Ideas for how to Nurture Creativity in Children, https://keepingcreativityalive.com

Video: Creativity and Education: Exploring Today’s Disconnect

A documentary inspired by the Newsweek article, The Creativity Crisis is in the works! A look at creativity in schools and “the imbalance that now exists between cultivating creativity and teaching the content that will be measured on the test.”

Needless to say, I can’t wait to see this!

Get out of their way!

“Kids are born curious. Period…. If you’re a child, you are curious about your environment. You’re overturning rocks. You’re plucking leaves off of trees and petals off of flowers, looking inside, and you’re doing things that create disorder in the lives of the adults around you.

 

And so then so what do adults do? They say, “Don’t pluck the petals off the flowers. I just spent money on that. Don’t play with the egg. It might break. Don’t….” Everything is a don’t.”

The key point Neil deGrasse Tyson makes?

“Help them explore.”

Set out some binoculars or a magnifying glass or something as equally interesting.. and most importantly get out of their way and let them explore!

Embrace the Shake

“Embracing a limitation can actually drive creativity.”

“Could you become more creative by looking for limitations?”

“We need at first to be limited to be limitless.”

 

This is a really cool talk on so many levels. Phil Hansen talks about the art making process, breaking through a creative slump, and embracing the shake and how thinking inside the box was his answer for creating art that was outside the box.

He’s also running a kickstarted campaign called “Tell me your Story about…” which has 5 days to go! A multimedia artist, Phil Hansen is ” interested in understanding people and ideas through the defining moments of our lives, how they affect us, and making art using mediums that are representative of these moments.”

I really dig the interactive nature of his art making process and how he uses people’s stories to create his work.

I’m inspired and reminded that limitations can really push the boundaries of your creative thinking. Hmm.. thinking of ways I can apply this to my own art making.. or that of my kids… Any ideas?

Child-Led Solar System Exploration

I’ve been greatly influenced by both Montessori and Reggio Emilia philosophies in which we are encouraged to “follow the child” and explore using “the hundred languages of children“. This is where this next exploration came from: V’s interest in working on a project and exploring it through different materials.

A few weeks ago V was telling me about a project some of her classmates had been working on at school. She decided that she wanted to work on it at home. She needed: black paper, pencil crayons, and play doh. The project subject: The Solar System.

Child-Led Solar System project, https://keepingcreativityalive.com

Her first task was to draw the planets. Referring to a Magic School Bus Space poster that we had, Violet started by drawing the sun, followed by colouring each planet in relation to it’s proximity from the sun all while carefully selecting colours that reflect the planet’s characteristics.

I’m not going to say she was all that careful about her drawing! At times I wanted to say “Slow down!” or “Colour more carefully” but I resisted critiquing and instead quickly became envious of her free flowing approach to drawing. I might have reminded her to make it a sphere or circle here or there… I couldn’t resist!

Child-Led Solar System project, https://keepingcreativityalive.com

As we went along we discussed some key characteristics of each planet:

Mercury: Lots of craters, Very hot and no water.

Venus: Clouds of deadly yellow poison called sulfuric acid. Covered with rocks.

Earth: Only planet in our solar system with oxygen and liquid water. Rocky planet.

Mars: The iron in soil makes the planet red. All water is frozen in polar ice caps.

Jupiter: Largest planet and has 16 moons. Made up mostly of gas.

Saturn: Surrounded by rings of ice, rock, and dust. Made up of gas.

Uranus: The gas methane makes the planet look blue-green. Travels around the sun on its side.

Neptune: Cold, dark, and blue. Strong wind.

V went on to sculpt some of the planets as well as the sun and the moon. I went off to do something else and came back to Saturn…

Child-Led Solar System project, https://keepingcreativityalive.com

.. and Earth.. V: “The green is the grass and blue is the water.”

Child-Led Solar System project, https://keepingcreativityalive.comI’m not sure she ever completed every planet but she felt satisfied with her solar system exploration.

A few days later, V came home with her school solar system project! Goes to show that just because they’ve done it once doesn’t mean they can’t practice it again.. especially when the interest is there!

Child-Led Solar System project, https://keepingcreativityalive.com

A Glimpse into the Future of Education: The Khan Academy

A Glimpse into the Future of Education: The Khan Academy, https://keepingcreativityalive.com

While watching the CBC News tonight I saw this feature on Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy.

Khan Academy is an organization on a mission. We’re a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education for anyone anywhere.

We are hearing a lot about how the education system needs to go through some major changes to keep up with technology and the way that children are taking in information. Khan Academy is all about that.

CBC News was so excited about this story that they posted additional footage of their interview with Khan where he explains how this project started as video tutorials for his cousins. On his family’s suggestion he posted these videos to YouTube where he soon found random people thanking him for helping their children learn concepts in math that they were struggling with.

What’s quite fascinating about this story is that the Khan Academy is actually a rather simple idea when you break it down. Sal (as student refer to him) provides a series of online tutorials on various subject matter that is explained in a very easy to understand way.

Khan took this further and created a full application for classroom use where teachers can gather data surrounding each student’s progress including content they are mastering and/or content they are stuck on. This tool empowers teachers to know exactly which kids need assistance and which peers can help struggling students to master the concepts as they have.

As Khan says, he is flipping the classroom model. Students can first study the topic at hand through the videos, then once in the classroom can apply the learning while the teacher is present to guide students and help when needed.

“A free world class education for anyone, anywhere.”

In 2011, Salman Khan talked at TedGlobal: “Let’s use video to reinvent education”.

Khan’s big vision is “a global one world classroom”.

As Bill Gates puts it: “This is a glimpse into the future of education.”

It’s Music Monday!

This is where you can watch the simultaneous space to earth concert for Music Monday.

So excited. What a great way to draw attention and excitement toward something so important: the importance of music in our schools and in our communities.

 

A Celebration of Music from Earth to Space and Back!

Have you seen this music video?  I didn’t quite understand at first that this was truly a live performance from space even though they show the guitar pick floating from weightlessness!

This video published earlier this year features the first space-to-earth musical collaboration with Chris Hadfield, commander of the International Space Station, singing along with The Barenaked Ladies and the Wexford Gleeks, Canadian Nation Showchoir champions.

The song, “I.S.S. (Is Somebody Singing) was commissioned by CBCMusic.ca and The Coalition for Music Education with the Canadian Space Agency to celebrate music education in schools across Canada.

Seriously, Chris Hadfield is so awesome! A true Canadian hero in my mind. The educational short videos he’s been sharing have been phenomenal in teaching kids, and adults alike, what it’s like to be an astronaut on the International Space Station. According to Wikipedia, “Hadfield was described as “perhaps the most social media savvy astronaut ever to leave the Earth” by Forbes after building a considerable audience on social media, including over 700,000 Twitter followers as of April 2013.

Monday May 6th will be the last live event Hadfield will perform from the International Space Station before he completes his mission and returns to earth. You can watch the live webcast by linking from the www.musicmonday.ca homepage starting at 11:55 EDT.

I’m personally so excited for this event because my sister in law will be signing along with students in her class from E.C. Drury School for the Deaf! I’m so excited for her and her students to participate in this once in a lifetime experience.

This is a true collaboration of artists, musicians, scientists, students and teachers celebrating the power of music and importance of music education. I’m inspired just thinking about it.