This was touched on slightly in another post but I wanted to elaborate on it. We can test all day long for math aptitude, reading, cognitive function etc but what about their creative side? Its not as easy to measure but it is certainly a valuable asset!

Is your child creative? Does he/she have an artistic side? If so, lets hear about it!

Dd loves music. She has an unusual ability to memorize songs after hearing them once or twice. Currently she's in musical theater and that is where her heart is. She lights up when she's performing! I love that she has an outlet like this where she can feel totally free!

The other day she came up with something that surprised me. She decided that she was going to invent a remote controlled flying broom! She had 7 pages of plans for her "prototype". Her broom has two seats, one in front of the other. It is propelled with two model rocket engines (I dont know where she gets this stuff), one facing down, the other facing the rear. There are remote controls as well as ones actually on the broom. She has no landing gear yet. She forgot about that! What I found interesting about this was not if she was going to ever actually attempt to make this but just that she had this unique, creative idea that just came from within. I love that creativity!

Well, DS does have the ability to think creatively about multiple choice and t/f questions. He can spend a lot of time trying to make every wrong answer work and then giggling about it. Can cats fly? Yes, if you put them in a CAT-a-pult.

Sadly, this does not always translate into high test scores!

Oh, acs that is funny...and clever! hehe!

Six years ago, when my son was newly five, he was in the habit of singing the lyrics of one Christmas song to the tune of another. He could interchange them quite easily and flawlessly. Of course we were used to him by that point, but this little parlor trick that he came up with stunned even DH and I.

This is a great topic. I was at the NAGC conference on parent's day last month and the key speaker was speaking to this exact issue. I cannot find a link to it on their website now. He was modifying the entrance requiements of the university he's at to not jut rely on SAT scores, but to include creative writing and problem soloving in their applications. It was a really fascinating discssion and he was trying to draw the parallel to younger kids and how some very gifted children may be easily overlooked by the standard group tests. And how he was at Harvard (I believe) and the admin there wouldn't really let him pursue this for their admissions.

Both DS7 and DD3 have amazing imaginations. DS7 is always trying to find new and different ways to solve dilemnas around the house. DS7 is also really creative on the piano and composes little songs that sound like backdrops for scary movies.

DS6 is an author-illustrator. His latest is a 12-page epic about the Transformers (no, he's never seen the movie or the TV show).

As an aspiring author, naturally I'm pleased as punch! But if he doesn't grow up to be an engineer (like his dad, uncle, and both grandfathers...), I'll eat my hat!



P.S. He can be anything he wants. He just has all the early earmarks of an engineer.

My son loves doing musical theater. When he first started at age 4 he would sing everywhere he went, even in the grocery store, and while he didn't like to read out loud in front of his Dad at that age, he would make up his own tune and sing the words as if he were singing in a musical.

He is most creative in the things he says and is good at making up jokes to fit any occasion.

My son learned to play chess when he was 4--his dad taught him. They enjoyed playing for a few months, but it was getting harder and harder for dad to beat him. Dad didn't understand how his son could look out the window, look around the room, then turn a make a move that would have Dad reeling. He thought his boy was just plum lucky.

Well, my son got bored of the game after a few more months. One day he set up the board with gates made of out of Legos in the middle of the board. "Dad, this gate is yours--you can only come to my side of the board by going through your gate. And this other gate is mine--I have to use it to get to your side of the board."

He's often taking things and trying to improve on them--or make them more complicated to play!

Ooh! I want to play that version of chess! Fun!

DS, now 12, immitates accents.
His best impersonation is of a hindu male trying to fix a computer problem.
No offence to any of you that speak with indian accent. I have an accent too :-)
Now thinking about it, his second best impersonation is of his own dad !

Both of mine do accents all the time. Indian, British, and Irish are the favorites

Mine can do a full, twenty minute conversation, LOL.
He had computer problems with his laptop so he did spend a lot of time on the phone recently. Now he just asks people - so what country/city are you in? And then begins to talk like them.
Now, as I think about it, maybe he is making up those problems to just talk to these people???
He is having the time of his life...

I like playing chess with DS11 and occasionally with his friends when they come over. With one friend we dreamed up the idea that before each turn you could draw a card that would have various directions on it, such as "Move any of our oppponents's pieces on the board, as long as it's legal," or "Choose a piece from your graveyard and place it back on it's begining square as long as the square is unoccupied." or "give up a piece"

If we ever did make such a deck, I would stack it so the better player got more handicaping cards and the other got more helping cards, as it is more fun for all if the players are evenly matched.

Other tricks we have used is to 'give odds' where the more experienced player starts with pieces missing, ususally decided together. A favorite other trick is to allow the beginner to call switch, and change positions at will. Personally, if I can maintain enough attention to avoid making any blunders during a game, I count that as a personal win. If I can recover and keep trying after a blunder, that's a personal win also!

When DS and I play I usually win, but Oh! there are a million cliff hangers. I'm trying to teach him that there are are really good reasons to follow the accepted wisdom. He tends to have certian natural advantages over me, although he's read much less. I'm not actually 'good' at chess, just good at having fun with chess. Although if anyone has suggestion about online chess sites, I might be convinced to play.

Trinity

Oh the accent thing, I totally forgot about that!! DD7 loves speaking with an accent and is incredibly good at a British one! Maybe thats partly why she is so good at theater. She can be such a chameleon!