Creativity Through Handicrafts Makes Happy Homeschoolers
Can you build creativity through handicrafts that will bring happy faces to your children? YES!!! Today I am giving your 4 reasons why this is true so that you will understand that handicrafts are not just for fun, but are a huge part of helping them build creativity and happiness.
“I don’t care if he hates doing 3 hours of work sheets, he will sit and read boring paragraphs and fill in bubbles until he hates learning!”
Now maybe this is extreme, but it’s not far off from what I’ve heard some parents say. It breaks my heart and since you have chosen to educate your children at home, I’m willing to bet it breaks your heart as well.
Now you are homeschooling, but you are struggling to make it fun so you can have happy homeschoolers. They are enjoying the living books as taught by Charlotte Mason, but there’s something missing. Something important.
If this is you, you are right, something important is missing. It’s creativity!!
I am not saying you can be creative with writing, nature drawings, painting, music etc., but I am saying there are way more things which can spark the creative minds of your children!
Creativity through handicrafts is just the thing to make learning exciting and fun.
So that’s what this post is about! Find out how handicrafts will bring out your children’s creativity.
What We Talk About Today
I will mention 4 things that will bring creativity to make happy homeschoolers and how creativity through handicrafts are the prefect thing to add to your homeschool.
1. Creativity Through Handicrafts Makes Happy Homeschoolers
Bringing Something New Into The World
Handicrafts isn’t just sewing or knitting, it’s bringing something to life that didn’t exist before. It’s having a vision, taking the time to create it in real life. It’s solving a problem that needed solving like sewing your own pockets into a skirt, or using your skills in a completely different way such as teaching your children geometry while sewing a small patch work quilt. There are just so many things that your children can create with their own hands that will give them pride in their accomplishments.
I remember as a kid making my own costume for a Adam and eve play I was in. Oh my goodness was that magical! I hand sewed a skirt! I was 9 years old and a very wiggly child, and yet I was able to sit down, concentrate, and finish it. My skirt has long since gone, and I bet my stitches were big, but that didn’t matter. I felt like a creator, a master of my own skirt destiny, bringer of nothing into something, like a co creator with God.
Years later, reading things like the little house series made me realize that people had been doing this for century’s and longer. A skill that was still alive and well even though most of what was created is gone…this lifted my soul and inspired me in so many ways in life.
This gave me a skill that I could be proud of when I struggled with other things like grammar and spelling, I am grateful every day for spell checks, but crafts, or handicrafts as Charlotte Mason called it, was a place where I could shine. It touched my soul in a way that only crafting could touch.
2. Creativity Through Handicrafts Makes Happy Homeschoolers
Learning To Be Wrong
Being creative is a waste of time isn’t it? Well, um, in a word, no.
Sir Ken Robinson is my favorite person on TedTalk called “Do Schools Kill Creativity?”
Towards the beginning says something that is so true:
“Creativity now is as important in education as literacy. and we should treat it with the same status”
He says that children are naturally unafraid to be wrong, but that they are educated out of it. he tells two funny stories that illustrate this. I’ll mention the first one.
A little girl was drawing in school. The teachers comes and asks her what she is drawing. The child says she’s drawing a picture of God. “But no one knows what God looks like.” Answered the teacher. “They will in a minute” answered the child.
Sir Ken says another fabulously true statement,
“If you are not prepared to be wrong you will never come up with anything original.”
A Little later he does it again with this:
“I believe this passionately we don’t grow into creativity we grow out of it or rather we get educated out of it.”
We are educated to be afraid to be wrong. handicrafts are a great way to teach our children, that it’s okay to be wrong.
“Everywhere you go their is a hierarchy of subjects mathematics, languages, humanities the bottom are the arts every where on earth.”
“Art and music are given a higher hierarchy than drama and dance. We don’t teach dance like we do every day with math.
Why? Why not? I think this is rather important. I think math is very important. But so is dance. we all have bodies don’t we?”
“I Can Fix That!”
Sir Ken Robinson didn’t mention handicrafts at all and I don’t know why, but I am adding it! Over 30 years experience has told me that crafting is an important part of education, I would even say a vital part.
Handicrafts are just another way to be creative along with dance, music, art, and drama. It’s another way to use your body, as he so cleverly pointed out, we all have one! And we need to use it!
Many years ago one of my boys made himself a pouch to hold his treasures in. The stitches were very large which meant that some of the smaller treasure fell out. His sister pointed this out to him.
“Oh, I can fix that!” was his confident reply.
In short, your children will be so much happier knowing they can be wrong, and that’s okay. handicrafts is the perfect way to learn this vital skill.
3. Creativity Through Handicrafts Makes Happy Homeschoolers
We Have A Body Don’t We?
“As children grow up we progressively educated them from the waist up. And then we focus on their head and then slightly to one side” Continued Sir Ken Robinson in the same Ted Talk.
“As an alien what you think education is for? ….. who wins the brownie points. Who are the winners?…university professors”.
He continues one to say that he likes them he used to be one, but we should not hold them up as the high water mark of all human achievements….they are another form of life.”
I’m going to repeat that. “They are another form of life.”
Sir Ken talks about professors living in their heads in a very funny way, which also says that it’s not right. They are missing important abilities that they were not educated for. He doesn’t specifically say that, but his humor implies it.
in short, we have bodies, so why aren’t we educating them? Hands are part of the body unless I missed something! Hehe
I could just type the whole speech for you but I’ll end with this last quote
“The creativity comes about by seeing the world in different ways.”
I highly recommend listening to the whole talk!
This is what a charlotte Mason education does, with handicrafts being just as important as being literate. Learning creativity through handicrafts are a fabulous way of seeing the world in different ways. I think this should be it’s own post.
4. Creativity Through Handicrafts Makes Happy Homeschoolers
Increased Motivations?
We are now ready for the last reason to Introduce creativity through handicrafts (besides making our homeschoolers happy)
Many decades of research has found that creativity creates high motivation to learn
Decades of research link creativity with the intrinsic motivation to learn. When students are focused on a creative goal, they become more absorbed in their learning and more driven to acquire the skills they need to accomplish it.
Reading The Whole Article Here.
I was homeschooled from 4-12 grade. Thank goodness because I was way to wiggly to stay still for one hour, let alone all day.
A few times there was a crafting emergency and my mom needed me to make a big bunch of things for her on the double! Such happy times were these! Some times the school day was shortened, sometimes all learning stopped and I would craft for the whole day or week. I confess I still wiggled a bunch in my chair, but I was still able to sit for longer periods of time while crafting then I could writing, filling out math sheets etc.
One time I made 80 butterflies out of pipe cleaner and tissue paper, and many other bugs of the cute kind. I also recreated as many kinds of flowers out of tissue papers and glue as I could remember from the top of my head.
All of these things went on a wall in the church to make a beautiful garden for the children’s “purple party”. The children that attended the party were so excited! They loved loved loved it!
Another time I made 120 or so Christmas ornaments for the children’s Christmas party after the Christmas pageant. That was such a fun week! I love seeing the children’s happy faces when they opened up what I made for them.
These crafty times fed me in ways that nothing else did even living books, and I am a hug lover of them. I was able to get more done during these times then during math lessons or any other subject, because being creative really is a driving force in all us!
Recap-Creativity Through Handicrafts Makes Happy Homeschoolers
You want your precious children to happy in their homeschooling, to have creativity, and now you know 4 ways that handicrafts do this.
- Pride and joy in creating something into the physical world that wouldn’t exist without them.
- Being wrong is just fine, and will make happier children. It will make them dare to do things they would not otherwise do. Then Creativity will come bursting forth!
- Educating our body, our hands, is just as important as our heads and will give our children happiness to learn other things besides the educational basics.
- Being creative brings motivation out of our children because they are so happy when they are creating.
So what are you waiting for?
Start my free beginner hand sewing lessons right here.