If you would have told me a couple months ago that life would come to a complete halt and I would have to adjust my everyday life to include homeschooling and zero interaction with friends and colleagues, I would have laughed hysterically. What a tall tale!
And here we are. Schools have been closed for weeks and will be for the rest of the year, and we are all doing our best to follow “shelter-in-place” orders for an indefinite amount of time. Oh, boy. What now? How do we keep our kids (and ourselves) busy and growing during this time?
I think creativity could be a good answer to that question. When have you ever had this much spare time or this much concentrated time with your children? Probably not since they were very young. This is a chance for creativity to thrive in your family, feeding your souls, invigorating your minds, and adding some joy to the current situation. God doesn’t make mistakes, and he has this particularly chaotic situation under control as well. How about we use it for his glory, starting with using his gift of creativity?
Here are some ideas for how to get started. Know that I’m keeping most of these ideas pretty general and vague so you can adapt them for your family. If you don’t have kids in your home right now, that doesn’t mean you can’t use these ideas. If I’m not mistaken, you were also a kid once, and personally, I’ve never regretted engaging my inner child as an adult. You probably won’t either.
1. Dot-to Dot/Paint by Number — Grab a piece of white copy paper and decide what number you want to count to: 1-10, 1-20, 1-50, 1-100. Start writing down the numbers on the page and keep it random. Once you have all your numbers on the page, you need to start connecting them! You can use straight or curvy lines. No rules here! Pick three colors and represent them with a number. Start adding numbers to the shapes in your line drawing and then color in the corresponding color. This activity combines math work and art and is a fun collaborative project. You can do it with markers, crayons, paint, etc. You don’t have to stick to solid colors; you could fill in with lines and patterns as well.
2. Round Robin Story Telling — Pick someone to start the story… ”Once Upon a Time…” and take turns adding to the story. If you are writing your story, you can allow each person to write up to five sentences; if you are telling the story verbally, give each person 2-3 minutes. You can set a time limit on this round robin story or you can let it go for as long as you want. If you are writing, you can start your story and then pick it up again when you are ready to do another round. Adding illustrations is another layer of creative fun.
3. Lego Charades — Each person has 15 minutes to build an idea of his/her choice. The other players can guess the idea during construction. If they guess it within the build time, the builder gets a point. You could break into teams, too, so that only your partner is guessing….lots of ways to create variation.
4. Beauty Treasure Hunt — Plan a time between 30-60 minutes and give each person the task of finding one beautiful thing for each sense they have: touch, sight, smell, sound and taste. (This is a little tricky outdoors, but get creative!) Have your kids write down what they find and then convene after the search time and share. We all see different things as beautiful so encourage everyone to explain what makes their specific find beautiful to them. You can then take pictures to capture the event or you can create a little box to keep the treasures for any time your family is in need of a beauty reminder.
5. Mystery Science Theater — Start by picking an age-appropriate movie or TV episode. Think old, black and white or something you used to watch when you were little. (Short, maybe 20-30 minutes, is better for younger kiddos with shorter attention spans). Once you’ve picked your TV episode or movie, make sure that MUTE is on and let the kids know that they are in charge of providing sound — they can make up the story line as they go or they can simply speak in place of the actors/actresses. Your younger ones might need some help from you until they get the idea, but your pre-teens and teens will dive right in. This is a great way to enjoy old classics in a new way and let imaginations soar.
If you would like more creative activity ideas and a place to bounce ideas off of others, feel free to join “Art Mom and Friends.” This is a public Facebook Group that I manage. I post a new idea daily Monday through Saturday. I also have some great creative resources available on my website. Our God-given characteristic of creativity has the chance to thrive and bring God amazing glory during this time of isolation. Yes, we can survive this time, but I think we, as God’s children, were meant to do more than that–I think we were made to thrive. May God bless your creative adventures!
Amelia Furman has been a member of Faith for seven years. She is a professional fine artist and teacher who specializes in mixed media art.
At Faith, Amelia serves as a writer for the blog and The Perspective and encourages others in blessing people with their creativity. She loves telling meaningful, thought-provoking stories that shape imaginations and minds for God’s glory.
Amelia is from Pennsylvania and enjoys painting, reading, running, hiking, and laughing.