This holiday season, nurture your child's creativity with crafts and activities that are geared toward their natural strengths and tendencies.
Nurture your
kid's creativity
Contributed by Susie Monday
Got a tactile-learner? A kid who loves to dance? Or maybe your child really loves color? While every child has a constellation of sensory alphabet strengths , your child probably has one or two that really stand out — that you notice in his or her art work or in elements of his or her collections and activities. The craft-making season provides ways for parents to nurture these strengths and make the holiday season more personal!
Shape
Is your child’s art always full of shapes? Cut out cookies! Make the process easier and faster by using dough from the grocery store refrigerator case. Find imaginative cookie cutters and combine shapes to make your own holiday inventions.
Color
Make "stained glass" cookies with color-loving kids, using bread stick dough. Shape it to make the "leading" on a cookie sheet topped with foil. Use crushed colored sugar candies in the spaces, cook and melt at 350 degrees until the candies melt. Let cool before peeling off the foil.
Sound
Let sound-oriented kids make a holiday wind chime with metal, glass and wooden craft-store finds. And you can put your sound kid in charge of caroling!
![video camera]()
Movement
MovementIs your child always on the go? Your little movers can create a holiday skit, videotape it and play it back for relatives after Christmas dinner or during other holiday shindigs.
Light
Appoint the light-loving child as the official photographer for holiday events. A lesson in digital app photo editing or in designing digital slideshows or print-on-demand books puts this creative eye into action.
Rhythm
With your rhythm kid, fill small glass jars with a tablespoon of different shakable items such as beans, rice, red-and-green beads, and metal washers. Decorate the lids with foil tied around the tops and stickers for patterns. Shake along to holiday tunes and carols.
![red ribbon]()
Texture
TextureA tactile child is the perfect one to wrap it up. Make bows, ribbons, homemade tassels and other embellishments for gifts and use wax crayon rubbings or sponge-and-paint prints on plain white shelf paper for custom gift wrap.
Line
A linear thinker loves stories. Put him or her to work making handmade holiday books using photos that tell a story about one of your family traditions. Start with folded paper with a construction paper cover, hole-punched and tied with string or stitched down the center on the sewing machine for the binding.
![cardboard boxes]()
Space
SpaceFor little builders, create a holiday village using recycled boxes wrapped in plain paper, turned into houses with stickers, markers, doilies and colored paper. For the more ambitious, construct a gingerbread house.
Matching a creative thinking strength to the right set of materials and a fun challenge can make it more fun — and help your child build from his or her strengths.
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About the author
About the authorSusie Monday is an educator, artist and co-author of The Missing Alphabet, A Parents’ Guide to Developing Creative Thinking in Kids, with Susan Marcus and Dr. Cynthia Herbert.
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