10 Ways to Encourage Creativity
Having students who are creative usually doesn’t just happen; but if they are encouraged to be creative and given the tools and resources to be creative, our classrooms can be seedbeds of creativity. Here are ten different ways to foster and encourage creativity in our classrooms:
Give students supplies and ideas. These don’t need to be for science or art necessarily; they can be just for something fun. My rule is that any activity should have educational value. This one, for example, involved planning, skill, and design.
Take students to new and interesting places for field trips.
Have interesting and unusual items in your classroom. Notice and say something when they do something creative, like stacking them all in a tower.
Provide lots of supplies in various sizes, shapes, colors, and textures for art projects. Bring them to school and encourage students to choose the ones they like, not what everyone else is choosing. Too often students pick the same ones and the results are too similar. Also, provide many options of designs and patterns for art or history projects.
Display their finished projects around the classroom and leave them up awhile so that students will have a visual reminder of their creativity to enjoy.
Write notes on your students’ papers or in their journals, appreciating their creativity. This will let them know that you noticed it, and this will encourage them to keep doing it.
Okay, these next two aren’t exactly being creative, but if we do them, we will be encouraging our students to think outside the box, exposing them to new and different things, and training their minds to recognize creativity, beauty, and God’s diverse creation. These will help them be more creative.
Introduce them to new games and edifying activities.
Find new and different foods, especially from other lands or cultures, and bring enough to school to share.
Try to think of different ways to do anything and encourage your students to do the same. “May we add a three-dimensional texture to our donuts?” “Can we make our own design?” “Let’s make one long connected line of sleds as we go down the hill!” Yes, yes, yes!
Be spontaneous. Make daisy chains on a sunny day during recess. Encourage a student to try to catch the bird feather that is floating down from the sky. It’s delightful to experience various activities; we don’t have to just play soccer every day.
Painting photo by Alice Dietrich on Unsplash
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