the smart creative

As you all know Keely is a lover of drawing and we are pretty much all creative. There is not a day now that Keely does not pick up a pencil, pen, crayon, paints or even her finger to draw in the sand. She adores drawing people and new things she has learnt how to draw. She often gets me to draw something for her and copies my picture.

I am loving some of the pictures she has recently been drawing. Her detail is amazing, every person has all their features drawn on them, they have palms and fingers for hands, sometimes they even have real eyes, not just the dots. She draws flowers, not just flowers, but flowers with leaves on the stems and little bugs that go on the flowers. She is also into drawing animals, dogs with two tails and funny looking animals with curly hair!

I learnt yesterday that you can tell how smart a creative person is by the way they draw and the detail they put in their drawings. (I am talking children at Keely's age). I was informed that the extra detail Keely puts on her people is a sign that she is ready for reading. That she is ready to learn how to read herself. I find it fascinating that they know this just by a persons hand drawn in a certain way or real facial features, like detailed eyes, ears with earrings and lips that are not just a curved line.

I asked how I could teach her how to read. I thought I would have to buy her a certain book, but all I have to do is show her street signs, any signs with big words and start saying the words to her, start showing her which letter is which and getting her to eventually tell me what things say.

I researched the reading readiness and what it all means and the signs that your children will display. There are numerous things to look out for, like your children tell you the story and make it up as they go through the book, they enjoy book reading time, and they are able to predict what will happen next just by looking at the pictures. I find it very interesting the way they teach children now and as my daughter goes through her last year of pre-school with preparation for "big" school I know I will be doing a lot more reading and research to give her the best start possible.

Being the creative person I know that as I went through school I had to train my brain to think differently. I found if I applied myself in creative ways to learn maths I could get straight A's, but leave me learning like the teacher was teaching everyone in the class and I was getting C's. It took me a while to work it out, but I eventually did. I think if I can get Keely to think of things in her way, her own creative way then she will be good at anything she does. When it comes down to it, if she is happy then so am I.