Questions to Inspire Creative Conversations with Kids

 

For over a year now, I have been posting a ‘Creative Question of the Day for Kids’ on two Facebook mini-blogs. My hope is that the questions inspire parents to engage kids in imaginative conversations.  (https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/MyPromise-Kids/116680188373130)

With my busy life, I often find it hard to formulate questions on-the-fly that stimulate excitement in my children’s eyes – questions that really open their mind and imagination and excite them to talk about their ideas, dreams and own inspirations. Therefore, I spend an hour or two every week to come up with a couple of topics inspired by my kids own experiences from the week before. I try to design a few open-ended questions that can be interpreted in multiple ways depending on my child’s mood, context or wit. Then I spring the questions on them throughout the next week – in the car, at the dinner table or waiting in a line. Although my daughter knows my tricks – she still loves to play along – maybe because she sees how happy it makes me. Either way, her teachers rave about her advanced creativity and communication skills, and my hope is that those skill will aid her in a long, successful and happy life.

MyPromise Kids Creative Question of the Day for Kids Facebook Page:  https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/MyPromise-Kids/116680188373130

(Members receive seven creative questions for kids ages 3.5 – 8 weekly. I also try to include a fun child-friendly web video, song, game, craft or activity to stimulate further interaction around the topic)

Making a Movie from Home Videos, Photos, Audio Clips and Kids’ Artwork

 As I mentioned in my last blog, for Christmas gifts this year for Grandparents, I made a home video of my kids through the years. In case you are thinking of tackling this type of project, here is a quick review of what I did (and what I learned along the way)!

1. I got organized!

• I transferred all of my home video tapes to computer. This required the right cable for high speed transfer (I got a Firewire compatible cable from Amazon) and storage space (I got a terabyte drive from Amazon.) 
• I organized my pictures by year and event. 
• I scanned or took photographs of my children’s favorite artwork.
• I ripped music from my CDs onto my terabyte drive.

2. I picked a movie software to use: there are some free options, but I wanted something with more options, so I chose the Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9.0. It was a steep learning curve, and there are a few things I would improve about the software, but ultimately, I am happy with my choice.

3. I identified the goals/scope of my video project: I wanted to capture the major highlights of my kids’ lives, starting at birth:

• Births (nothing messy!)
• Birthdays
• Major holidays and trips
• A sprinkling of cute moments from everyday videos

4. I began reviewing the videos from the beginning working forward. 

• I determined it was faster and easier to review the videos in a viewer outside of my movie making software and then write down the number of the clips that I wanted to bring into my project in batches.
•  If I brought too many clips into the software, it got bogged down, and I had to wade through tons of clips that I did not want in my video.
• The viewer allowed me to jump around the clip faster than the movie software.

5. I supplemented the video clips with photographs.

• Photos have more clarity than video, so I added some photographs of the same event at the beginning and/or end of the video clips to bring it into better focus.
• If I did not have a video for a major event, then I strung together a series of photographs with music.
• I created pseudo-cartoons from series of similar photographs by transitioning one photo to the other without a pause in between, and then pausing only at the beginning and/or end of a series.
• I added images of some of the kids’ best artwork through the ages.
• I also had a fun transition idea: I transitioned from a family photograph to one of my kids drawings of the family or from a picture of themselves to a self portrait they had drawn.

6. I added music.

• I added music to the picture portions and into some of the background of the video for effects. (Example: I played ‘In My Daughter’s Eyes’ by Martina McBride for my daughter’s birth pictures.)

7. I added captions and audio accents.

• I sprinkled in some of my favorite kids’ quotes and sayings – both in writing and sound.
• Some of the kids’ cute sayings, songs and quotes I had as sound bytes, which I ran with some of their photographs.
• I separated the cute audio potions of video where the kids were saying something fun, but the lighting, jiggling or other factors made it visually unappealing. I then used just the audio of their sweet voices as I scrolled through their photos or artwork.

8. I made homemade DVD cases.

• I shrunk down the kid’s artwork with my home copy machine’s resize in color option. I cut out and laminated the miniature copies of their drawings. (A fun way to do a lot of projects with kids’ artwork!)
• I fashioned a DVD-sized sleeve from craft foam paper, and then I glued the laminated kids’ artwork to the outside.

9. I made DVD labels: I printed DVD labels with more kids’ artwork using special DVD labels and software.

This was a sizable project, but what I liked about it was that the kids really enjoyed watching the progress. They felt valued, and they loved the finished product!

As a matter of fact, they are watching it right now (all 1.5 hours)!

Happy Movie Making!

The Gift

This year for Christmas, everyone is getting the same gift from my husband and me. It has been a tough year for us, financially, and otherwise. I take comfort in the love and health of my family this year, and that is what inspired the gift.

Truly, despite adversity, I have had the greatest year of my life. My kids are as cute as could be at this age (4 and 6 years), and I have tried to take every opportunity to ‘live-in’ and cherish every moment of their sweet innocence. I know that soon they will be grown. This past year, I have taken time to try to see the world as they do. I have examined pictures they have drawn, absorbing every detail; I have started fun conversations and quoted their precious responses; I have tried to plan engaging projects capturing many on home video, and I have sought out and offered to them many left-brain and right-brain activities while marveling in their malleable creativity. I would like to believe that I will never forget the wonders of this year…life is beautiful.

Life may not always go as I plan, but I am thankful for every simple, precious and beautiful moment. Life can change in a moment, a heartbeat or a telephone call, and my appreciation for my present circumstance always seems relative to better or worse times. This year, I have learned that there is no time better than the moment that I take the time to cherish.

There is nothing that exemplifies this more to me than looking back on old home videos. I swore that I would never forget my children’s first smile, first laugh, the way they clenched their cute little fists or their fragile little coos. However, now that I have finally taken out the old home videos, I feel that I am living it all for the first time again. Have I really forgotten that much? Where has the time gone?

I see myself in the video holding my 18 month old daughter as she met her newborn brother for the first time. She looked so sweet and adorable as her life changed before my eyes. I was there. I know that I was, but the details escaped me until now. Maternal hormones, worry, anxiety and multi-tasking have clouded many of my memories…thank God for home videos.

And that is what I am giving this year. I am giving memories. I have taken out all of the old video tapes (yes tapes) and transferred them to my computer (a month’s worth of work) in order to make a chronicle of my children’s lives. From birth until now, I am trying to highlight the major events from their short lives. From this past year, I also have their artwork scanned, and I have captured their songs and quotes on my digital voice recorder (a wonderful gift in its own right). I am making a montage of pictures, videos, artwork, songs and quotes for family members, and it has been a wonderful and cathartic project to build.

I know that my family will love this gift as much as I do. Thanks to my husband, the videographer, I have so many adorable clips of the kids: belly laughs of my son at 6 months, and sweet confessions of my daughter at 2 years old. I know that there will be a time when my kids are grown. In each individual moment that seems so far away, but if I cherish those moments, perhaps I can make it last.

Ready, Set, Action! My Daughter’s First Animated Film

This past weekend, my six-year-old daughter Emmary completed her first animated film, and she could not be more proud of herself. The entire project was her idea, and she directed every step.

One day, Emmary asked Daddy how cartoons were made. He explained how it was a lot of pictures put together to do different things. Later that day, she walked up to me with a stack of 30 pages of drawings in her hand. She told me that she drew a cartoon and wanted to know if I could make a movie out of her work. I said, “I don’t know, Honey, but we can try.” I had absolutely no idea how to make a cartoon, but I had been dabbling with making movies out of home videos and pictures; so I thought that I would load the pictures into the software and see what I could do. I told her that we had to make the movie next weekend as it would take some time to scan all the drawings into the computer with our old, persnickety scanner. It was a task that might take hours…

The next week, as I was dreading the task of the scanning session during the upcoming weekend, my wonderful neighbors stopped by out-of-the-blue to ask us if we wanted their old printer with feeder scanner as they had gotten a new one. “Yes!” It was a good thing, because Emmary had already asked me seven times if we were going to make her movie that weekend!

On Saturday morning, as I was wrestling to download the driver for my new scanner, Emmary walked up and asked me for our digital voice recorder. She explained that we needed to record the sound track for her movie. “Of course you do!” I said. (Um, I had not even thought of that!) With voice recorder in hand, she said, “I need your help Mommy. Can you get your trumpet down? You need to play the music.” “Okay…” I said as I thought, “Oh boy, I have not played my trumpet regularly in over 15 years, the valves stick, and I have no valve oil, but okay! I am not sure that I will ever get this all together anyway. At least it will be a fun way to spend the next 20 minutes with my daughter.”

I pulled my trumpet down and saw “Eye of the Tiger” at the top of the music folder. I asked Emmary if that was okay for her movie. “Yes.” she said securely as she started the recorder and told me that she would cue me to play. Off we went with no practice, no script and no idea what we were doing. At least that is how I felt. Emmary seemed to have a plan. She cued me to play. She had drawn a DVD menu just like the ones she had seen at the beginning of movies she’d watched. She began describing the menu options and then launched into narrating the story. She stopped from time-to-time to say, “Mommy, go,” and I would do my best to play a part of the song. I was amazed to see her so decisively direct the audio portion of her movie. At the end, I realized that now I was really on the hook to pull this all together!

 We successfully loaded the images and sound onto the computer, and the movie making began. She became frustrated watching me futz with the program to try to figure out the features of cropping, panning and special effects. I sent her off for an hour to play while I figured out what I was doing, and when she came back, we sat together as she told me how she wanted the scenes to work. “Have them bounce up and down…I like that special feature…The pictures are moving ahead of the sound…” I was her technician, but she was producing her film.

“Can we put it on a DVD?” she asked as I set the software to render the movie. It was important to her for her own movie to look and feel like other movies in her collection. She colored a CD label for it, and from an old movie, she chose a commercial DVD case to repurpose for her project.

Emmary watched her movie at least five times that next day.  She showed her movie to every friend and neighbor that came by. She was so proud – and embarrassed at the same time. She kept putting her hand over her face in embarrassment. I guess it is hard to watch your passion take wing the first time. You never really know if it will fly. In my eyes, she is soaring.

A Child-Hearted Interview – Asking Young Kids Creative Questions about Grandparents

Asking young children creative questions about their grandparents or relatives can be a fun activity during a family gathering, such as Thanksgiving. Kids generally love the attention and enjoy taking center stage to display their creative imaginations. They give answers that will often surprise and delight the audience. Sometimes, young children may not be in the mood to answer, especially if they are not used to creative questions. However, the more that this activity is done with children, the more excited they will be to engage their imaginations and share their answers. 

Here are some ideas of creative questions to use to ask young children about their grandparents or family relatives. 

1. What is your favorite thing to do with Grandma/Grandpa?
2. What does Grandma/Grandpa do that makes you happy?
3. What do you do that makes Grandma/Grandpa happy?
4. What do you think that people say about Grandma/Grandpa?
5. What is Grandma/Grandpa really good at doing?
6. What is a cool new nickname that you think everyone should call Grandma/Grandpa?
7. If you could dress your Grandma/Grandpa up as anything for Halloween, what would you have her/him be?
8. If Grandma/Grandpa was famous, what would it be for?
9. What did people say about Grandma/Grandpa when s/he was little?
10.  Why does Grandma/Grandpa deserve a vacation?
11. If Grandma/Grandpa was a monster, what would s/he look like?
12. If you could make any wish for your Grandma/Grandpa, what would you wish for her/him?
13. If you switched places with Grandma/Grandpa, what would you have done today? What would Grandma/Grandpa have done in your place?
14. Why do think Grandma/Grandpa might deserve an award?
15. If Grandma/Grandpa was a superhero, what would be her/his superhero name?
16. If you planned a special day for Grandma/Grandpa what would you do?
17. If you could get anything in the world, what gift would you like to give Grandma/Grandpa?
18. If Grandma/Grandpa was an animal, what animal would s/he be and why?
19. What do you think that Grandma/Grandpa liked to do when s/he was your age?
20. What would you paint Grandma’s/Grandpa’s face to look like right now?
21. If you made a home movie of Grandma/Grandpa what would s/he be doing in your film?
22. If Grandma/Grandpa won an Olympic medal, what sport would s/he win it in?
23. If you could send Grandma/Grandpa on vacation anywhere, where would you send her/him?
24. What do you think Grandma/Grandpa wanted to be when s/he was little?
25. If you made a new flavor of jelly bean for Grandma/Grandpa, what flavor would you make for her/him?

Of course, you can interchange then names of aunts, uncles, cousins or godparents for any of the questions listed above. You can ask as many questions as your child’s attention span will sustain. Sometimes it is just a few, and sometimes they are in the mood to ham it up if there is good audience response! If you have your video camera available to capture the interview on film, it can make a great gift for grandparents and family. Happy Holidays to all!

Tips for Creative Conversations with Kids

I recently discovered that the way to my young children’s hearts is through their imaginations. I know that they like to do pretend play, but I must admit, it is often not my favorite activity. I would much rather do a craft or build something than pretend to be Wonder Woman, and my kids can sometimes be very particular about how I should act.

However, I have found that creative conversations that engage my children’s imaginations can be fun for them and me too! I can easily spend half of an hour talking about how we might design our family theme park, what we might see if we lived in space or how we would build a statue of ourselves out of vegetables. The best parts are that we all have fun, we can do it anywhere, and there is absolutely no cost or clean up!

Here are some techniques that I use when I want to start a fun and creative conversation with my kids:

1. Open-Ended Questions:  I start a conversation with an open-ended question that is specific enough to spark an idea on a desired subject but general enough that I have no expectations on what the answer might be.
2. Imagination:  If I incorporate my kids’ imagination through make-believe  “what if” questions, I immediately see their eyes brighten.
3. No Wrong Answers:  No matter how my children answer the question, I usually repeat their answer out loud and explain how I can understand the relationship to the original question. This sometimes requires a little creativity, but there are no wrong answers – just sillier ones that make us laugh!
4. Teaching Moment:  I let my kids answer first, and then I always answer the question myself. I usually use my turn to answer as a teaching moment on the original subject.
5. Child’s Choice:  I let my kids choose the direction of the conversation, but I try to creatively tie their additions back to the base subject.
6. Child’s Own Questions:  As the conversation proceeds, I encourage my kids to make up their own questions on the subject.

Make it a Routine:  Every night at dinnertime the kids ask, “What is the ‘Question of the Day’?” This is our reminder to connect and engage as a family. For help with creative conversation starters, you can join the MyPromise Kids ‘Question of the Day’ through www.mypromisekids.com.

Paint a Smile on Your Kids’ Faces

 

My kids love to have their faces painted, and last year, I learned how to paint that joy on their cute little faces.

When we went to Legoland® last year, I watched my daughter have a butterfly painted on her face. As I was handing over the $14, I thought, “Wow! There must be value in this activity for a lot of families.” Then, I thought, “I am in the wrong profession! Fourteen dollars??”

I have never considered myself much of an artist. By watching my daughter’s transformation into a butterfly princess, I saw that it was not that hard to do, and I began experimenting with face painting. If I can do this, then anyone can! 

Here are a few practical tips that I learned over this last year of face painting:

• In order to avoid any potential allergic reactions, buy a face paint that is specifically for faces. I found mine in the craft section of Wal-Mart.
• Start by searching the Internet for face painting ideas and inspiration. I made a collage of several of my favorite designs for reference. It also helps to have kids look at the designs when making their decision.
• If possible, do the face painting outside, where the sun and wind will help dry the paint faster. This will prevent smudging and also allow several layers of colors to be added to the design.
• So that you can grab the right brush quickly, arrange your paintbrushes into large, medium and small brushes in three cups of water.
• Use a paper towel to blot the water off of the paintbrushes as you take them out of the water.
• Mix colors! For fun streaks and effects, dip the paintbrush into the main color, and then dip the tip of the brush into an accent color. Some of my favorite combinations are green & yellow, purple & white, and red & yellow.
• Start around the eyes – Work outward from the eye area to avoid painting too close to the eyes.
• Use lots of colors, and you can’t go wrong!

Face painting is a very forgiving art as long as you think big and use many colors. Surprisingly, smaller one or two color designs on the cheek are much more difficult to make aesthetically pleasing. With a little face paint, you can turn a plain old day into a masquerade party extravaganza or backyard carnival bonanza. If you are feeling really brave, sit down and hand the paintbrushes to your kids. You just may discover how you really look through their eyes!

Bringing Veggies to Life – and Then Eating Them…

Like many parents, I have trouble getting my kids excited about vegetables. Short of dressing up as a gigantic rutabaga, I have tried many different tricks to try to make vegetables enticing. I have tried different kinds of seasonings & dips, cuts and crinkle splits, and I have even tried the blend and hide method, but mostly my hopes of having my kids cry out for more helpings of vegetables have been squashed.

When I was a kid, I remember sitting at the dinner table for hours – maybe even days, or at least it seemed, after dinner staring at a mountain or…er…uh – at least a spoonful – of frozen peas that I refused to eat. I learned to swallow them whole to avoid their nasty taste and texture.

Now I love vegetables! So was it the ‘stand off’ method that eventually brought me to this vegephilic state? I wonder if I should give up my peas-ful ways of introducing vegetables to my kids and simply have a sit-in each night.

Ah! Spare – Ugh! – Us!  That sounds so cu-cumbersome!

My theory is that even though I never did cry out for seconds as a kid, it was the repetitive introduction of vegetables that eventually opened my mind to learn to love the way vegetables made me feel healthy as an adult. I may not have liked or even consumed them much as a kid, but vegetables were very familiar to me…

So I am always trying to find new ways to introduce vegicepts (those are vegetable concepts) to my kids. My latest experiment was to bring vegetables to life through vegetable statues. Here is what I did:

1. Challenged their melons by peppering them with creative questions about vegetables!
   • Example:  If you made a statue of yourself out of vegetables, what would you use for your body, head, arms or legs, etc.?
2. After the mind mash, we headed out to the farmer’s market where the kids selected vegetables to build a statue.
3. Back at home we sat down with our peelers, butter knives, toothpicks and cutting boards, and we went to work creating statues.
4. The kids could not part with their statues that day, so I told them that we would put them in the fridge until tomato. In the mean time, I found recipes to cook up our new little friends.
5. The next day we all tried new vegetables.

You can watch how our experiment turned out here:

Children’s Reward Jars – Implemented!

The June/July issue of Disney Family Fun magazine printed an article, Don’t Lose Your Marbles by Malissa O’Brian, about using reward jars as a system to provide positive reinforcement for good behavior. Having graduated from the system of ‘good behavior praise’ and ‘bad behavior timeouts’, I had been looking for a new system for my daughter (6) and son (4 ½); so I decided to implement their suggestions. Of course, every family is a little different, and I needed to adjust the system with a few details to get it just right for my good little Samaritans.

The system calls for jars and swirly marbles – simple enough – I can do that! Each time that a child exhibits good behavior or completes a chore, a marble goes into the jar! Once the jar is full, the child can cash in all their marbles for a treat of their choice, within reasonable boundaries, of course. However, if my child misbehaved, the penalty would be to lose a marble from the jar. 

While the article suggested buying the jars, I used a leftover jam and olive jar. My daughter bedazzled her jar with foam stickers and beads, but my son chose to leave his jar plain. Next, I went on Amazon to search for marbles…not as simple as I expected! I found a couple bags of plain colored marbles for $3 a piece and ordered them for (free) 2-day delivery. As we waited for our marbles, we talked about our goals for the new system, and I let the kids decide how many marbles they might get for certain tasks, such as cleaning their room or feeding the pets. They were excited and couldn’t wait for the marbles to arrive!

After the marbles did arrive, we began implementing the system, but it was rocky at first. Their excitement sent marbles rolling in every direction across the kitchen floor – some never to be seen again. My son enjoyed playing with the marbles more than putting them in his jar, and  although my daughter wanted items in her jar, she didn’t really get that sparkle in her eye from the marbles after the second day. I could tell that a full jar and an intangible reward seemed too distant and abstract for my children at their ages, and after a few days, it was time to customize our system.

I headed out to Michael’s craft store in search of more enticing treasure and a more tangible reward. I came home with new treasures of little plastic multi-colored gems and pumpkins ($4 for a good sized bag). I also purchased two peacock feathers ($2 each). The peacock feathers would serve two purposes. They each had an ‘eye’ to watch for good behavior, and they served as the tangible reward that, after achieving a full jar, my children could receive immediately and later exchange for a treat of their choosing.

I placed the new treasures in a small vase with peacock feather adornments to provide a visual presence of the incentive. The gems were the perfect alternative to marbles, and my children eagerly exchanged the marbles in their jars for the new gems and pumpkins. They longed to play with the peacock feathers, but they understood the system in order to be awarded a feather.

After six weeks of the reward jar system, I am happy to say it is working superbly! My children have raced to do many chores that they normally whine about. Although I was always a big proponent of praise for good behavior, the system allowed me to give even more emphasis to good deeds, which has made my children more aware of their actions. I am so proud of my children for the sweet things they have done for each other – sometimes for gems and sometimes ‘just because’.

It did take about a month to fill each jar, and my son traded in his first peacock feather for a small Lego’s set, while my daughter chose a family movie night as her reward. The kids seem to be maintaining their enthusiasm for the system, and as suggested by the system, my husband and I feel great about unexpectedly dropping in a few gems when we catch good behavior. It makes my children’s eyes sparkle like gems!

Have a Field Day of Memories – Build an Obstacle Course!

One of my fondest memories from elementary school was the Field Day of obstacle courses that was put on once a year. I never knew what to expect, and I always had so much fun laughing at everyone looking silly as they attempted to tackle the obstacles.

So in my attempt to create wonderful memories, I decided to build an obstacle course with my kids as a fun way to promote creative thinking, teamwork, sequence memory and even teach a little engineering. We designed our course in the backyard, although we might do another inside during the winter months. I included my kids in the design of the course, in order to help keep the obstacles age-appropriate and also give them a sense of pride and ownership.

Before we got started, in order to introduce the kids to the concept and spark a few ideas, we watched a YouTube video of kids running an obstacle course. Then we went out back and started brainstorming ways we could engineer a fun and diverse course. My main role was to ensure that all the obstacles were safe to traverse, but the kids were the Chief Creative Designers.

Once we had completed the design, the kids began racing through the Hopping Hose Loops, Do-Your-Best-Dance-In-The-Sprinkler, Bed Sheet Tunnel, 3-Jump Trampoline, Bubble-Popper, and the Crawl-Pop Up-Crawl Passageway obstacles. I only pretended to time them as a relay team, and the kids’ team won the Gold Medal! They then ran through the course again and again in a freestyle manner.

Afterwards, we had Popsicles, and we sat around talking as I asked them some imagination-engaging questions about obstacle courses. In answer to, “If you could include anything in the world for your obstacle course, what would you include?” an answer was, “A ball that you could stand on.” In response to, “What could you wear to help you make it through your obstacle course?” we had, “Lightening shoes!” And when I asked, “What would it be like if your obstacle course was up in outer space?” we heard about a combination of spaceship races around the stars and rocket races to the moon while dodging lightening bolts. What great imaginations!

All in all it was probably a couple hours’ worth of activity, but I would bet it created a lasting memory. Now I am looking forward to hearing my kids say, “Remember, Mom, when we made that obstacle course in the back yard? That was fun.” Someday they just may try to recreate that feeling with their children, and I will be there with the video camera in hand.

A video of our obstacle course: