A common complaint from people outside of early learning is that our children don’t get enough time to play and we, as parents, are stifling their creativity. I have experienced the opposite, however. Early learning has allowed meanongful play to crop up from the knowledge we have gained about various topics. I was wondering what other parents might have experienced? Would anyone care to share?
Today, we had one of those moments:
Josiah used some marbles and string to create a stomach with the marbles as the contents. He then imagined one marble traveling through the whole system and provided sound effects. At this point, mommy joined in and helped him find other stuff around the house to create the rest of the digestive system.
So cute! Good for Josiah, and his mommy!
I’ve had a couple of experiences like that recently. My 22 month old daughter and I play a phonics/blending game where I write letters on the whiteboard and she says their sounds, then I help her blend them. She hates to draw and has never sat still and drawn for more than a few seconds, but now she’ll draw “letters” on her whiteboard and sound them out for five minutes at a time! She’ll do it with sidewalk chalk and a pen and paper too. She doesn’t do it quite right - it tends to come out “u… p… Mommy!” - but it’s very cute and it’s the first interest she’s shown in any of the visual art things I’ve introduced her to.
We also use a book designed for 3-5 year olds to teach scripture stories. She loves it, but I’ve wondered how much she’s retaining. Then the other day she was playing with her horses and I overheard them acting out one of the scripture stories! So exciting for me as a mom; she’s retaining what we discuss and playing more complex imaginative games on her own!
Ella made a couple of interesting structures over the last few days that made me think of this thread. 
The first pic is an “Egyptian mummy inside a sarcophagus.” She continued adding to her creation with a mix of Duplo, Lego, Megabloks, and Zoob until she had a pretty good depiction of life in ancient Egypt, which was unfortunately destroyed by an over-eager younger cousin before I had time to take a picture of the whole thing.
The second pic looks like a pile of geometric solids to ME, but, according to her, is actually “an Ice Age dwelling built by Homo sapiens sapiens using mammoth bones and skin with 2 mammoth-hunters beside it.” And check out their tools in the foreground too - there is a “harpoon made from a long wooden stick and blade from mammoth bone which is used for hunting seals”, as well as a “chopper - it’s the round piece of rock with sharp edges used for crushing nuts.”
Oooookay! lol
(Words in quotation marks are hers.)
I have also found the early learning moves into all areas of play. My DD the other day drew a picture of her family with her younger sister sitting on her Daddy’s shoulders, then made everyone stand on some grass which is all fairly typical for nearly 5 year old drawings, except that then she went on to draw the soil under the grass and then underground rock and the water underneath that, followed by drawing a borehole and water coming out of it to water the grass.
:biggrin: Kids are so friggin cute! You guys are doing awesome! I love how knowledge just comes out the mouths of babes.
Wolfwind: That is great! Making up words, for a 22 month old is impressive esp if she is attempting to write them!
Anna: Ella is so cute! I love the mammoth bones and sticks! I wish my imagination was still that active.
Tanikit:
That is awesome. Kids are so great at applying what they know to everything around them! Much better than adults are, I think. Josiah tells me almost daily about the atoms in his hands. lol
I love the pictures of all the kiddies!
And I completely agree I have not found in any way that EL has stifled my son’s creativity.
I actually thinks that there is such a focus on implementing creative curricula that educational content is falling to the wayside.
So cute! Yes, I agree that EL helps foster creativity because kids have more knowledge to draw from in there play. They can take their play farther. The other day my 22 month old surprised me when he put his diving ring (for swimming) around a ball and told me it was Saturn. A kid who doesn’t know what Saturn is could have the same two objects and would never be able to make the connection.
I can’t wait for my son to make a digestive track or an Egyption Mummy in a sarcaphagus! Kids are so amazing!