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CYBER MONDAY: What Mobile Apps should parents look out for this weekend?

by Matthew Worwood November 28, 2015

written by Matthew Worwood

CYBER MONDAY DEALS (FALL 2015)

The Earth by Tinybop 75% off
Tiny Farm – Animals, Tractors, and Adventures

Usually Saturday’s is devoted to a 3 Question Interview, where we get to hear ideas from subject matter experts on Creativity or creative activities. However, this Monday is CYBER MONDAY, which means there’s an opportunity for us to grab some new mobile apps at discounted prices. Sadly, it’s impossible to know what apps will go on sale come Monday, but I’m going to share some of my more recent favorites, as well as three from a previous 3 Question Interview with award winning educator Jonathan Nalder.

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Now as I’ve referenced in the past, most toddlers will begin to develop an interest in mobile devices by observing their parents with the technology, but there are some specific apps that offer the type of interactivity that can enhance the experience for our young ones.

SEE ALSO: Introductory Apps for Toddlers

This CYBER MONDAY look out for apps produced by WonderKid, and as of today Tiny Farm – Animals, Tractors, and Adventures, is currently available for FREE. Other Toddler apps to look out for are Baby Musical Hands and Toddler Cars.

For preschool, the selection expands considerably and parents should identify apps that fit their child’s interest and creativity. My new favorite, The Earth by Tinybop is right now discounted at 75% off, and another preschooler app to checkout this weekend is LaunchPad.

Here are 3 others suggested by award winning educator Jonathan Nalder as part of a DadsforCreativity 3 Question Interview on Mobile Apps for Childhood Creativity.

We’ve received requests on what mobile apps are best for young children? What are your three mobile apps for creativity at home or in the classroom?

Minecraft – is far and away one of the most popular apps for 4-10 year olds – because it lets them use their imagination and challenges them to constantly problem solve. Only caution is to manage access to the ‘survival mode’ for younger children as it introduces gameplay elements such as dying, zombies and other such elements.

MyPlayhome – is now a series of apps that allow kids to act out home, shopping and school/ kindy environments. A great one for them to experiment with different situations and to explore the interactive rooms on offer.

PuppetPals – a super simple app for creating animated videos that records a child’s voice and on-screen movements of puppet characters (which can include their own face) to introduce them to digital storytelling.

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November 28, 2015 1 comment

Jonathan Furst

Playdate with New Tech: I Spy With My Little Eye…Virtual Reality

by Dads for Creativity November 25, 2015

written by Dads for Creativity

You played the game with your kids. Cup your hands like a camera lens – look around 360 degrees – up and down – side to side – until you spot something: “I spy with my little eye….”

But the whole game is about to change – the very definition of “what you see” is about to take you down a rabbit hole into a new world of experiences!

Last week my eleven year-old daughter and I got a crash course in Virtual Reality thanks to an innovative app from the NY Times (NYTVR) and a cardboard Google VR viewer (above):

Times editor Jack Silverstein termed The Displaced, the paper’s first story in the field of virtual reality journalism, “a new frontier in storytelling.” The idea behind what’s being called ‘immersive journalism,’ according to Lorne Manly, “is that the visceral experience of VR makes the viewer a new kind of witness.”

After Natalie and I downloaded the VR app for my iPhone, we were given the option to watch The Displaced, a virtual reality story/documentary that is shot in South Sudan, Ukraine and a Syrian refugee settlement camp, by looking right at the phone screen or, much much better – by placing the phone in the Google viewer. There is no comparison:

“The magic of emerging virtual reality technology,” the Times explains, “is that it takes viewers close, very close, to the children — and the world — that are the subjects of the film. So close that at points in the 10-minute film, it seems that each of three children is standing right in front of you, looking you in the eyes.”

And it is magic. Natalie and I each took turns experiencing the sensation of VR – as we seemingly travel with a young Sudanese boy as he maneuvers a make-shift skiff through a swamp – look from side to side and you see what he sees as he stands in the skiff – look upward – you lose sight of him, but see the African sky – now glance down & there is the bow of the skiff gliding through the muddy water!

“Virtual reality is famously indescribable,” Peter Rubin reports in Wired, “I can write all day about what it’s like to descend into the sea in a shark cage, or hang out with a lonely hedgehog, or walk through the streets of Liberia… until you do it yourself, though, it’s all just words.”

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I will save for another post how VR is already being used:

for creative applications in k-12 curriculums
in simulations for medical school students
in training purposes for the military
in game-based recreation as well as game-based learning experiences

College and NFL teams have begun to use Virtual Reality to evaluate potential players: imagine putting a VR helmet on a college QB and have him take snaps against a virtual opponent!

Robert Hof likens VR headsets to “juiced-up View-Master toy stereoscopes …allowing viewers to navigate three-dimensional videos and animations. The 360-degree images and sound shift with the user’s head movements, tricking the brain into reacting as if it were all real.”

And this is only the beginning.

For the fun of it Natalie and I traded experiences of what we’d like to experience in VR. Without hesitating, she wanted to zip line through the rain forests in Costa Rica. I was torn between driving the Patriots downfield with the vision of Tom Brady, and experiencing a visit to a Tibetan monastery. Maybe one then the other.

In The Future of Virtual Reality Janson Ganz asks, “What would you do if you could do anything? Would you be a rockstar, playing a sold out arena? Or be a surfer, riding the gnarliest 100-foot swells this side of Hawaii? No seriously, stop for a second and picture it. Imagine yourself there. For most people, this is a fun hypothetical question. But not too long from now, it’s going to become reality… because nothing is ever going to be the same.”

What would you like to experience right now? The sky is the limit – where would you like to go? The rabbit hole is just a VR headset away.

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November 25, 2015 1 comment

Drawing for Kids: Tips from Artist and Illustrator, Bill Dougal

by Matthew Worwood November 21, 2015

written by Matthew Worwood

Lets talk about Drawing for Kids – Kids like to Draw! They start scribbling at around 18 months and don’t really care too much about the final product – the process of drawing and seeing marks appear on the page is enough for them to get hooked. Later most will begin to use shapes and color selection to represent objects and people. I still have some of Lucas’s early drawings, and you can see genuine attempts to represent characters from Thomas and Friends. I use the word ‘genuine attempt’ because often I would challenge him to draw a character, but sometimes our little ones might just be drawing at random, and only recognize meaning to their creation ‘after’ it appears in front of them. What I found is that it’s important to ask questions about their work and engage them in dialogue. ‘What’s this?’ or ‘Who do we know who is this color?’ are nice simple questions to get the conversation started with little ones.

I can’t remember Lucas’s age, but I made a note of what he said each item was. You can see clearly that he uses color to distinguish between shapes.

I’ve been really interested in how drawing has played into Lucas’s creative development. His imagination regularly plays out on the page and one of his favorite activities continues to be making stories. My wife sometimes shows him YouTube videos of how to draw an animal and I have found some cool drawing apps from the Apple App Store. One of my favorites is the Mastermind Kit from OSMO, which combines technology with traditional drawing styles on paper. This is important as Lucas is not a fan of drawing on the iPad itself and likes the feel (or perhaps freedom) of a pencil and paper.

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Observing Lucas I feel there are two parallels in play – one is the creation of a story and the other is the development of drawing skills. Last month I pumped into Artist and Illustrator Bill Dougal, who has over thirty years of experience as a professional artist, specializing in Caricature Drawing and Advertising for children’s books. I asked Bill to provide some advice on how parents might better cultivate drawing skills in our little ones.

Why do you think most children like to draw? For example, my boy loves to act out stories on paper. I’ve introduced him to some great apps on the iPad, but he keeps coming back to the crayon.

“Making a mark” in the world may be a basic human desire. Perhaps it proves ones’s existence, and a quality of uniqueness. Young kids want to try things out. A child thinking, “ Let’s see if I can draw a circle.”, is like he or she thinking, “Let’s see if I can jump from the chair to the sofa.”

How does the act of drawing engage Creative Thinking Skills in children? More importantly, is there a way to expand upon these skills?

Once you draw a line, you have to think how the next one should be. Options include placement, size, shape, style etc.

Are their any drawing techniques or styles that you think parents can introduce to their children at an early age?

Picture making skills can be advanced if the child understands the process. Steps include; idea, planning drawing, assessment, chances, and finishing. This may be advanced for the very young. A simpler version is; Draw something, think how it can be better, then draw it again.

Tots can explore examples of variety. For instance, different kinds of lines, i.e. scribbly, jaggedy, dashed etc. They could also try different kinds of compositions, i.e. sparse, busy, or weighted to various areas of the paper.

You can learn more about Bill’s website on his website dougalart.com/education

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November 21, 2015 1 comment

Matthew Worwood

Helping with Homework: Turkeys, Art & Creativity with My Son

by Dads for Creativity November 18, 2015

written by Dads for Creativity

Thanksgiving can be a difficult time for a multitude of reasons; family, dinner plans, travel, traffic, and family all contribute to The Holiday Headaches. However, nothing is more challenging than being an oversized turkey in your underwear just trying to hide from becoming Thanksgiving dinner.

This was just the challenge that was leveled from Mrs. Lefebvre to her first grade class, and was sent home as a “family homework” assignment [helping with homework!]. My son, Logan, came home on a Thursday and explained to me that we had to come up with a disguise for his paper cutout of Tom The Turkey to help save him from becoming dinner. He further explained that last year all of the first grade students had turned his or her turkey into SpongeBob or Spiderman, and that he had to come up with an idea to help “hide” his turkey.

As we sat down to discuss options, his first idea was to copy the first two ideas that had already been mentioned in the teacher’s homework handout. I challenged him and told him that these ideas have already been taken, and that he would have to come up with his own. He sat for a while and only repeated designs that were discussed in class.

I asked him to think about things that he and I like to do, something that he finds interesting, and told him that he would find his inspiration there (of course it took some time to explain the concept of inspiration!).

Then the light bulb went on…Logan stated, “we are going to make a cowboy costume for Tom!”

Logan began by describing what this costume should look like, and on his artistic command, I cut out a pair of cowboy boots, a vest, and a hat. He watched me spray paint one boot and then took over and finished the rest under careful watch. Using masking tape, we planned where the sky would meet the grass, and again shared in the spray-painting duties.

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Once the background dried, Logan’s inspiration really kicked in: He told me that the cowboy would need to be roasting a marshmallow and that we would need to build him a fire. He ran outside to get some sticks and rocks and together we glued them in a circle. He placed the stick in Tom’s hand and ran to get a cotton ball to complete his masterpiece. I was patient as he placed and replaced his rocks, glued his fingers together, and thought about how he could add more. Soon Tom was clothed and looking well disguised.

In my work as an associate principal, I have the privilege of observing some of the most impactful art teachers in the profession. During a recent observation I watched a teacher challenge her students to tell her “What is Art?”

I took a moment to start this conversation with Logan and asked him, to tell me what he thinks art is. He told me that it is “beautiful” and “colorful” and sometimes it is “expensive.” I explained that art sometimes has deeper meaning, and that ordinary things, like a rock, can stand for something else, like the number of kids in your class. I told him it was like a secret meaning and he gets to be the creator…pretty heavy stuff for a 6 year-old! Then he jumped up. He told me that we “needed 17 stars, one for each kid in my class and a crescent moon that would watch over all the stars, that would be Mrs. Lefebvre.”

I think the final product is proof that our art homework was a success, but like art well done there was a deeper meaning to this experience.

The project took patience, listening, and finding new ways to communicate with my son. In the end, I’m not sure who inspired whom, but I know I was reminded of some very important lessons that will be helpful in art and life.

First – Anyone can be an artist. It does not take a masters’ degree in the arts to create meaning and share ideas.

Second – It takes patience to allow your little artist to make a mess, take risks, and test theories (and some acetone to remove the glue from the countertop). It took reflection and creativity on dad’s part to incorporate lessons I have learned from talented teachers to help inspire my son. It took courage to test those lessons on my 6 year-old and hope that he would understand.

Third – Being fully present and disconnected from the interruptions of the digital world truly helped bring out the creative process. It allowed me to enjoy each moment with my son as we worked on this “family homework” As a result, he has created a project with his dad that he is overwhelmingly proud of, and is excited to share with his classmates.

More importantly, he brought the picture to class on Monday and asked Mrs. Lefebvre when he would get the next “family homework” assignment. I have to admit, I can’t wait to see what “we” can do next!

Article by Dr. Jason Tracy

Jason Tracy is an associate principal at Amity Regional High School. He has served as a school counselor and conducted research focused in the areas of social-emotional development, self-concept, and school climate. He spends his free time engaged in fostering the academic, social, and athletic development of his two young sons.

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November 18, 2015 2 comments

3 Question Interview Matthew Worwood

Science for Kids: 3 Question Interview with Science Wiz, Marc Balanda

by Matthew Worwood November 14, 2015

written by Matthew Worwood

A few weekends back I went to a kid’s birthday party. It was a family friend and I was looking forward to it in the same way I look forward to all kid parties, though I confess I wasn’t expecting anything different or out the norm – but then out walked a Wacky Scientist. I didn’t recognize him at first, but on closer expectation I realized it was the Dad of the Birthday Boy.

Marc Balanda, who recently became principal of Brookfield High School in CT, started his career as a General Science and Biology teacher, thanks to him he says his son has a genetic predisposition to scientific concepts, so he decided to tap into his old skills and put on an awesome birthday party. After seeing things explode, expand, and change color, I figured we need a DadsforCreativity 3 Question Interview on how parents can better promote science for kids.

See Also: Daddy! I need more Input

Why do young kids love Science?

Kids are inherently curious about everything around them; they are always looking for answers to their questions. Children always ask “why” and in some cases adults don’t know how to answer. If it is a question about the natural world and the behavior of the things in it, Science gives them what they are so desperately seeking, an answer. That only spawns more questions, that lead to unanswered questions, and hopefully more investigation. It is hard for me to understand why adults don’t like Science more, it gives us something we are looking for, answers!

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In what ways can parents engage young children in Science?

It really doesn’t take much to peak a child’s interest in the natural and physical world. In many cases it doesn’t cost a thing. Engaging kids in talk about what you know, or if you are risky what you might not know, gets them to ask questions, hypothesize, and test solutions. Celery (w/leaves), food coloring, and water. You can have a conversation about how plants “drink”. Potato slices, salt, and water. You can have a conversation about osmosis. At bathtime, put a crumpled tissue in the bottom of a cup, flip it over, and submerge with a steady hand. Ask your child, what happens to the tissue? Slowly take it out of the water to reveal a dry tissue. Ask why that happened. Instant air pressure lesson! There are tons of links to at home science on the Internet. The more you show them, the more they want you to show them and do themselves.

I have failed in my attempts to make a Volcano. I need help! Looking forward to trying this one.

Ok – this question is for me. How do I make something explode like a volcano – I’m talking really REALLY big!

It really depends on the concentration of hydrogen peroxide solution you have available to you. It will work with the usual brown bottle at your house but on a smaller scale. I went to a beauty supply store and got 40-volume hair developer which is roughly 12% H₂O₂compared to the 3% in the brown bottle. The empty bottle has the hydrogen peroxide, food coloring (for effect), and dish soap (to increase bubbles made). Putting the yeast into hot water “activates” them (they are living organisms) and when they go into the hydrogen peroxide solution, then the magic happens. The yeast acts as a catalyst (speeds up a reaction) that causes the hydrogen peroxide to rapidly lose an oxygen molecule. That molecule quickly rises through the dish soap (like blowing a bubble). Combine thousands of those reactions in a split second and you create the “volcano”. Interestingly, the decomposition of the oxygen from the hydrogen peroxide means a chemical bond is broken and the energy has to go somewhere. In this case, it is heat, which is why this is considered an exothermic reaction! Be careful with the hydrogen peroxide…it is a chemical that you don’t want to get on your hands or in your eyes.

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November 14, 2015 1 comment

3 Question Interview Matthew Worwood

Photography and Creativity: What’s the Connection? 3 Question Interview with Photographer, Dan Kane

by Matthew Worwood November 7, 2015

written by Matthew Worwood

It’s been argued that we live in the ‘Age of the Image’, where our ability to decode and capture visuals are now a necessity in order to communicate information. Not only is photography a powerful art form, but also a storytelling one as well. I’ve been slowly trying to introduce Lucas to Photography, but because I’m awful at taking photos I don’t really know where to start. Dan Kane is a Photographer, who took some absolutely awesome photos during our first real family shoot at the beginning of October – I asked Dan to participate in our DadsforCreativity 3 Question Interview, and give me some pointers on how to introduce photography to young children.

Photography and Creativity – what’s the connection?

I was 13 years old when I got my first camera. As I started taking photographs, I found myself using my eyes differently as I was constantly seeking out interesting patterns, textures, colors and people. I had always loved to sketch and draw, but my camera gave me the chance to be creative in a new way as I documented things that I saw in my everyday life. I would constantly test myself to come up with a new angle or approach to a subject that might otherwise not be very interesting.

Dan’s daughter helps him add some final tweaks to our family photo!

In what ways can parents introduce young children to photography?

My two daughters (ages 5 and 7) have already expressed an interest in photography and I encourage it by giving them “assignments” with my old point and shoot camera. For instance, I’ve had them shoot portraits of their favorite stuffed animal, seek out examples of a certain shape or texture or take “action” photos of our cats. Occasionally, they sit with me as I’m editing and we discuss composition. It’s fun for them and I love that they take an interest in my work!

How can parents cultivate creative thinking skills within these introductory type activities?

It’s important to always remain positive and focus on interesting elements of the pictures your kids will take. They won’t all be great, but as long as they keep shooting, their eye will develop quickly. You might even see them gravitating towards a particular type of photography like nature, portraits or even abstract subjects. Don’t get bogged down in trying to teach them the technical aspects early on. Just let them shoot and have fun!

I bought my eldest a VTech Kidizoom Connect Camera. Here he’s trying to snatch a picture of a giraffe!

You can see some of Dan’s work on his website at http://dankanephotos.com/.

Dan – thanks for participating in our Dads for Creativity, 3 Question Interview. A big take away from this interview is less on the technical and more on making time to review the pictures my little one taken and together identify interesting things that’s been captured!

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November 7, 2015 1 comment

Jonathan Furst

Sing A Song Of Learning

by Dads for Creativity October 31, 2015

written by Dads for Creativity

“I can’t carry a tune,” my daughter laughed – but continued belting out On My Own from Les Miserables – her intonation off on almost EVERY note! She’ll probably never be a singer – but singing and music may help her in some unexpected ways.

Music has the potential to unleash the creative potential in kids – and even better – may help them learn new material and retain it. This does not refer to the so-called Mozart effect in which just listening to classical music may improve performance on specific mental tasks.

My colleague, Keith Smolinski is a sensational science teacher at Amity Middle School in Bethany, Connecticut, and a gifted musician and composer. He composed The Cell Song to teach his seventh grade students some basic biology:

“….The lysosomes are janitors,

clean the cell for free……

Cells, cells, cells, cells

The building blocks of life

They’re in your pet and in your knees

In your toes and all the trees

Cells are in your families…”

I knew that students loved learning biology in Keith’s class, and that his use of song enabled the kids to really connect to the material and retain it. Imagine trying to take words like mitochondria and lysosomes and work them into a song – yet he does! Listen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzMviiBoRtA

As my daughter methodically repeated a list of fifteen vocabulary words over and over again ad nauseam, I thought I’d give Keith’s idea a whirl.

Natalie and I watched the The Cell Song on YouTube – she immediately plugged in to the playful nature of the music and the seemingly effortless way words like vacuoles and ribosomes rhythmically were defined and explained.

So we jumped right in. First word on the list: “Versatile: Able to do many different things or be used in many different ways.”

Natalie sang the letters aloud and added hand claps: V-E-R…(3 hand claps)…S-A-T (3 hand claps)….I-L-E (3 hand claps). The melody she made up was very “singsong,” but it made us both laugh as she repeated it over and over. She then spontaneously got to her feet and pranced around the living room spelling out letters to the beat of the melody she had created. It’s fascinating how made up short songs or jingles (called earworms) get stuck in our head!

Try it now on your own: Take a word. Now make up a melody and repeat the letters playfully a few times so the melody sinks in. There’s no right or wrong on this one – especially if you’re like my daughter (and her father) who can’t carry a tune.

Step away from the blog. And make up a melody to go with the letters of any word….

How did it go? It’d be fun to get some feedback on what happened when you tried it yourself – or with one of your kids. Share it with us – click on the Read More at the end of this blog and then scroll down to Leave A Reply.

After Natalie had the spelling of VERSATILE down – she expanded the melody from the spelling to include the definition of the word. And she repeated it while parading from one end of our ranch home to the other. The learning of new vocabulary words became a playful creative activity – and the learning stuck!

This creative style of learning intrigued me, and I spoke with Keith Smolinski to find out more about it:

“Science can be a foreign language to some students, and music can break down the language barrier so the content comes easier to students,” he explained. “Think of music and why it hits you – the a-b-c-d alphabet song – there is something about the combination of rhythm and music together that sticks. Music can activate regions of the brain. Songs can help learn basic concepts, and help students retain certain things without having to just memorize.”

As we continued our discussion, Keith did point out, “Don’t put everything to music – I’m not saying that. But it can help supplement certain things by having kids get up and create songs and move. “

The idea of learning while moving (kinesthetic learning) is another fascinating concept that I’ll write about in another post – but for now I just want to add a vignette:

When I was working at the Juilliard School, I staged Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Medium with the conductor Myung-hun Chung. We built a strong collaboration in part because I was staging my first opera and he was conducting his first one. Hun was also scheduled to conduct Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. One night he invited me to a dress rehearsal, and I was amazed as he conducted the entire score by heart. Afterwards I asked him how he memorized it all. Hun asked me to walk with him across the stage. As we did, he demonstrated to me what he did every day in Central Park before rehearsals: as he hummed the music – he changed the pace of his walk every time the tempi changed in the score.

As we continue to explore this relationship between creativity and learning – a huge thanks to Keith Smolinski for sharing his innovative ideas. I love the byline on his Smolinski Music page: Reaching Minds Through Music.

Here’s a link to Keith’s page:

http://www.smolinskimusic.com

And if you’d like to dig a little deeper into this fascinating field, Keith suggests you look at This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin

http://daniellevitin.com/publicpage/books/this-is-your-brain-on-music/

October 31, 2015 1 comment

Matthew Worwood

Reading and Creativity: Ask QUESTIONS that engage CREATIVE THINKING

by Matthew Worwood October 29, 2015

written by Matthew Worwood

“Questions leading to direct and simple answers do not improve […] thinking skills. “

As parents we hear that regularly reading to our child is one of the most important contributions we can make to their educational development. In this article I’m going to reflect on the ways this pastime might enhance Creativity by asking questions that go beyond merely recalling information, and instead challenge skills in Creative Thinking – with specific examples at the end of the article.

My wife and I started reading to our boys as soon as they were born, and while I confess it can be difficult to make this happen every night, we’ve obviously done it enough to establish a routine, where they both happily jump up on the couch when presented with a book.

It's important to start reading young. Start with baby books that show pictures with contrasting colors.

We’re advise to read baby books that show pictures with contrasting colors.

As I begin to reflect on the relationship between reading and creativity, I look at my son’s love of making stories, that not only have a clear beginning, middle and end, but also a resolution integrated at the end of the story. Below is one of his short stories that we turned into a movie.

Looking at the subject of Reading and Creativity a little further, I’ve recently accessed some articles on the subject, and found that asking questions that stimulate the thinking process is one of the most important things we can do when reading to our children.

‘Questions leading to direct and simple answers do not improve […] thinking skills. However questions related to old and new information and which leads the individual to reach some particular values are beneficial for thinking skills.’*

What does this mean? Well I think its safe to say that we’re ok asking our toddlers to point out the Chicken, or the Duck, but as they get older we need to find ways to challenge our children to evaluate the new information they’ve been presented with, and combine it with what they already understand in order to make judgments or reach new discoveries.

Here are some specific examples:

For a new book you can start with the front cover and challenge your child to tell you what the story is about, and then follow up with questions on how they reached their conclusions.
When reading the new book you can engage your child’s imagination by challenging them to tell you how they think the problem will be solved. Again follow up with questions on how they’ve reached their conclusions. You might even ask them if the story/ or problem reminds them of another book you’ve read together.
Things can become more challenging when you revisit the book for a second or third time, but actually there’s an opportunity to engage creative thinking by asking the child to relate the story to their own experiences. For instance, you could cask them would do if the Big Bad Wolf knocked on their door, or if you want to challenge them further – help them identify the wolfs problem (he’s hungry) and then ask them to find another solution that doesn’t hurt the little pigs.

There’s a lot of information here, but the main take away is when reading, ask questions that engage thinking, and avoid those that are closed ended (have a yes or no response) or merely require them to recite what you just read.

To conclude – Read, Read, and Read (but don’t force it if a routine hasn’t been established).

*Nevin Akkaya, M. Volkan Deirel (2012)

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October 29, 2015 2 comments

Matthew Worwood

Creativity Chit-Chat: A Parent’s Guide to Creativity

by Matthew Worwood October 26, 2015

written by Matthew Worwood

It’s always energizing to be in the company of fellow educators who are passionate about the cultivation of creative thinking skills in the classroom, it’s doubly exciting when most of them are parent’s as well.

On Friday I presented at the New England Association of Gifted and Talented annual conference, on the subject of creative thinking within project-based learning. The title of my presentation was called Project-Based Learning: The Role of the Creative Thinking Advocate, and followed an article I wrote on the blog Keep Learning. Most of the conversations centered on Creativity and how we can cultivate these skills in education. As many of the attendees were parents, the conversations naturally expanded to ways we can develop these skills at home as well, and more importantly the need to share our understanding of Creative Thinking skills. Inspired I updated the page ‘What is Creativity? A Parent’s Guide, and shared it on Facebook. What is Creativity? A Parent’s Guide.

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October 26, 2015 4 comments

Matthew Worwood

kid Moviemaking contests: The Conjurer (plus Kid Movie Making Tips)

by Matthew Worwood October 20, 2015

written by Matthew Worwood

We’ve decided to launch a parent and kid competition. The Conjurer is a fun video challenge that requires parents and their kids to produce a short 15-second video using a mobile device. Winners will receive a Dads for Creativity T Shirt, and an absolutely awesome mini Tripod, which was kindly donated by Joby (Thank you Joby!)

BACKGROUND:

The Conjurer is a black and white, 1899 movie made by illusionist and filmmaker Georges Melies. Accompanied by a ballet dancer, George Melies performs a quick series of magic acts, including disappearances, reappearances, and transformations.

Now with a mobile device and moviemaking app we can accomplish the same effects used in this film by making two minor edits in our timeline. The creativity is in the story that you create and the items that you make disappear!

THE HOW TO ARTICLE: Kid Movie Making Tips: 6 Easy Steps to Movie Making Magic

COMPETITION RULES

Films must be filmed and edited with a mobile device ONLY.

The film must replicate the general gist of The Conjurer, which means you must make something disappear, or appear, or transform.
Films must be under 45-seconds and will be judged for their creativity and story.
If it’s available you’re encouraged to add a filter that creates the look of an old film, but it’s not required.

Submission links must be posted below or shared on the Dads for Creativity Facebook page. We also welcome submissions via Instagram (which has a 15 second cap), but you must remember to use our handle @dadsforcreativity and include the hashtag #TheConjurer.

Suggested Resources

Movie Making App (iMovie is certainly my preference)
Mini Tripod is helpful

COMMENT BELOW for FREE FILM on Creativity in Education

If you choose to comment via social media be sure to sure to include reference to @dads4creativityor share from our Facebook page. We’ll follow up with details via a private message.

October 20, 2015 0 comment

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