Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Thinking Outside the Box: Painting Pinecones

One of the biggest lessons I want to teach my children in life is to think outside the box. The world isn't just black and white and not every problem has a clear solution. I hope to provide my children with the tools needed to come up with their best possible solutions in life and to work through things with an open mind. Last night the boys demonstrated some fantastic thinking and creative skills and I couldn't be more proud of them thinking outside the box.
 It was a gorgeous day and a nice crisp night so I decided to take the three minis on a walk to burn off some energy before bed.


Elizabeth was scared of the dark and coldness, so she spent the walk buried into my should whispering "oh no."

Mid-way through our walk the boys discovered pine cones along the sidewalk. They stopped and gathered as many as they could in their coat pockets. Then Max said "hmmm, what do you think we should do with them?" Before I had a chance to answer with the possibilities, they began to  answer their own question. Some of the ideas thrown out were: make a collage with pine cones and red leaves (Max then pointed out to Harrison that all of the red leaves had fallen out of the trees so they nixed that idea asap), they could paint them, make up a game to play with them (hide the pine cones was suggested, but Harrison noticed a few of them were sticky and Max thought I wouldn't like that on our stuff--how right he is!), they could paint with them using lots of bright paint, or they could use white paint and use bright paper.
I was so impressed with their creativity and how they came up with all of these fantastic ideas all on their own.

After a thirty minute discussion, the boys decided to paint on the pinecones with bright paint....while wearing their underwear because "this is the perfect project to do that with." There's no doubt in my mind that these two will have no issues with creative thinking skills and putting this to use in every day life.

All of my "lets paint with...." projects has taught them to see simple things in a different light. To think outside of the box. Little things like this gives me confidence in my parenting ways and gives me hope that my children are in fact putting to use the skills I am teaching them. Once again, I am left completely amazed and in awe of my children and what they are gathering from this world.