Creativity Flows

I like it when Shane gets creative.

There's normally only three hours of time on school nights between Shane getting home and him going to bed. Chores, dinner, and reading eat up at an hour to an hour and a half of that and then Shane normally enjoys another hour to an hour and a half of electronics.

That doesn't leave a ton of time for creative play.

On the weekends, however, there's more opportunity. I like to give Shane chores or let him be bored for a bit to see if he comes up with something.

After Shane made a neat train track, I asked if he wanted to build a Lego town around it.

He did a great job. It's dangerous to walk in there barefoot now!

Shane started to work on a comic book later in the day. It was about a poodle who was crossed with a man in a weird accident and sounded suspiciously derivative of Dogman, ha ha! 

Now, there's normally an open offer to play a board game. Shane normally doesn't choose to answer that call and I don't make him, because I want board games to be fun, not forced.

Shane actually chose to play a board game this past week! He asked for Monopoly at first (of course), but after I said, "Just about anything else," he chose Pandemic: Iberia.

We won by the skin of our teeth. We placed the last blue cube and then had to hope we didn't have to place another for a couple of turns before we cured the final disease. Shane was a sailor and enjoyed scooting around the board to his self-produced soundtrack. 

Star Trek Drawings

Carrie must have been excited. She posted at the first stoplight after she hung up.

Shane was pumped to show her, too!

Carrie's watched a couple of episodes of Voyager around Shane. He loves the intro. He forbids her to fast forward.

All it took was for me to doodle some on a piece of paper. Shane will almost never draw on his own initiative, but if he can swipe something I start?

I'll leave off my doodles, but Shane drew a borg cube,....

....and Voyager, some asteroids, and a planet. 

All good stuff! 

There, But Not Yet Back Again

A month has passed and we're almost in Mirkwood. I could tell after the initial reading, Shane would require an abridged version. I skipped to the trolls and added funny voices the next read. 

I know there's still a bunch that goes over Shane's head. He doesn't have any background troll knowledge and the vocabulary is not typical American 5-year old. 

So, sometimes I stop to ask questions or summarize. 

"Do you know what menacing means?"

Shane shook his head.

"Scary or about to hurt you."

"Ooohh....."

Other times, I doodle.

I never said I was an artist. Shane doesn't have a lot of patience either. He wouldn't want me to take the time to really get the scale or look up what the correct Gondorian heraldry/armor might be.

It's a good break from listening for him. It also gives me something to do when we're drawing tornadoes and I want to think of something else.

Saturday night, the Lord of the Eagles rescued the party from burning trees.

And then Bilbo had to hang on to Dori's boot or fall far below. (Note: "Hey! That's one of my tornadoes!" I don't waste paper).

Shane must be picking up some of it. He drew his own picture.

Beorn came along Sunday morning. 

I think it's important to let Shane imagine some of this stuff before he sees anything similar on TV. I want to watch the cartoon and then the Lord of the Rings with him eventually, but after he's got an imagination workout. 

Reading and Writing, Boy

Shane read 26 "-at" words with me the other day. There are some fun sentences in there ("Drat! That fat cat pat bat scat.") 

I stopped before "shat." The goal was to read and rhyme, not acquire vocabulary.

It took less than 10 minutes. I would have let Shane stop whenever. He wanted to continue. He liked it when I highlighted each word he read. 

I don't consider myself a Type A-Tiger-Push-My-Kid-to-Exhaustion parent. I do consider reading to be an important life skill. It's powerful and fun.

Eventually, school will push decoding, so I try to focus on the joy. We go to the library, doodle on pages, and read whatever Shane picks out. I point at words as I read and let Shane guess at the simple ones. It's nothing fancy. We don't read every day and rarely for more than 15 minutes at a time. I'd love to read a lot more than we do. I suggest it often! ("That book looks awesome!" or "Which book is your favorite?"). Shane prefers TV. 

Nothing we do is revolutionary, but Shane's growth astounds me. He wants to learn and he has!

And it's not just his reading.

I draw with Shane fairly often. He likes to doodle tornadoes, garbage trucks, and Jupiter. I add details and label things for him. Sometimes, I work on my own pictures. That lasts until he gets interested and takes over. I taught him how to draw a flower on Frosty's hat yesterday ("Draw a circle for the middle of the flower and then draw circles all around it for the petals").

It helps our house is littered with composition notebooks. I make lists all the time.

I was reading something on the computer when Shane slipped me this note.

How could I not? I was blown away! It would have been a bad example not to get excited! Shane cackled.

He went for an encore performance, too!

I had no idea Shane could craft sentences on his own. I was half-annoyed when Carrie corrected "Git" before she charged me.

It became a game.

It was a fantastic teachable moment. I wish I could recreate that energy in my classroom on cue. Shane's like a sponge. He wants to learn. He thinks it's fun!

Shane Drawings - The Gallery

Shane is drawing more and more. Each picture has a story, to it.

Picture 1: F5 Fun

Shane draws lots of tornadoes. Lots. I like this one, because he clearly wrote F5. He normally tells me they're "big," "the biggest," or "F5," but this is the first time I've seen him write it. Completely uncoached. The house is a nice touch, too. We talked about adding perspective once.


Picture 2: The Dump

If it's not weather related, it's garbage related. Or at least machine related. This one is a large dump with "lots and lots of gears to cut up trash." They're on the left. Then there's a whirlpool to swirl it all around and a big hose to pull it out of the whirlpool and spit it out. I wasn't too clear on that last part. I tried to ask if it sucked in the trash, but Shane made so many sound effects (with much spit) that I don't know the final purpose.

Picture 3: Shane's Garbage Deluxe

Shane likes garbage trucks. 'Nuff said.

Picture 4: Daddy's Garbage Truck

Okay, so I drew this one. Shane likes me to draw, too. However, you can only take so many garbage trucks before you want to get the kid to think a little more creatively. I kept it similar but made it a little more out there to get him thinking out of the box. I always draw simple because A)I'm no artist and B) I figure it's easier for him to imitate.

Picture 5: Shane's Out-There Garbage Truck

The cab moved up and there was a shovel/claw under it. There were also little hanging chairs for kids to sit in and ride along. I added the stick figures. We decided that you could hook car seats up to ride along. The claw grew and the hopper is full of lots of buzz saws now.

Picture 6: Spikey Mountain

First, Shane drew a vanilla "Olympus Mons" on the adjacent page. Then he wanted to draw another bigger mountain (it always has to be the biggest). Shane added spikes that eat you if you climb on them. But not animals. Only people. To cheer it up a little, I suggested that maybe a helicopter would be more fun. Then we both agreed that the top of the helicopter has to spin or there will be trouble. Shane named the mountain "Mnen." Basically, he wrote random letters and I told him it was pronounced "M-Nin." I suppose the M could be silent, but Shane's still learning each letter has a sound. I'll save that for when he's older!