The Creative Campus The Place For Learning Activities for all ages!

Hello Friends, Have you ever felt like you don't have the resources, Like you are not creative enough to eliminate the struggles you and your child are experiencing as you try to learn and build new skills as you play and explore together? I want to show you that it's just not so! I want to share with you a way that you can Play, Learn and Grow with your child IN SPITE of these feelings of Limitations or Struggles . I believe that when you engage with your child in activities that are centered around them, they naturally are engaged and develop an interest in the activity and learning what lessons the activity provides. Building New Skills and Engagement doesn't have to be work! it can be fun for both you and your child. When I work with clients I help them create "Invitations to Play, Learn and Grow". I describe an invitation as any activity that is set out for a child to explore and engage in at their own pace. These activities are always open ende...

This week we are talking about Gardens In my Facebook group . https://www.facebook.com/groups/Thecreativecampus/ We are having discussions about what might grow in a garden?  what we can turn those things into (Food). Do things "Live" in our garden?  If so, what kinds of things might live their?  What kinds of conversations are you having with your Creative Young Learners?  I would love to hear all about your conversations!  leave me a comment or come visit us over at " The Creative Campus". Have a Fun and Creative day Learning and Growing! Your Creativity Producer and Professional Mess Maker! Theresa

Good Morning Creative Friends! What are you learning this week?  Are you exploring a theme?  Are you looking to learn a skill? What are you looking for to support your learning this week?  I am looking forward to having a lot of fun, engaging conversations this week Here, Over on The fb page and in my group!  I love hearing about the creative engaging ways you like to learn and grow. This Morning I encouraged my friends to go outside with a shovel and a bucket. Dig in the dirt!  see what you find. what does it feel like? what does it smell like. what might your little ones want to put in the dirt? Have fun today as you learn! Leave your comments and questions below and I will share my friends ideas as well. Your Creativity Producer and Professional Mess Maker, Theresa @ The Creative Campus.

It's Friday .... Friday ! (Doing Happy Dance) I hope you get to enjoy this wonderful day! Today I want you to have some creative Fun! I want you to create Your Favorite Plant! you can make a 3d Version (stuffed bags, Folded Paper). You can use clay and sculpt. I want you to have fun with it! (post your creations for me to see).  Also I realized I haven't Given you Questions For the Invitations I have been posting .OOPS! Here are a few: 1) What would you plant in ... your garden? 2) What Tools Would You need? 3) How would you plant your garden? I posted something this morning I thought you would enjoy reading! https://plus.google.com/collection/UdD7SB If you are looking for tips to build Independence for your child. This is for you! I would love to hear your thoughts. Have a great weekend!  Your Creativity Producer and Professional Mess Maker! 

Today   over in the Group we are talking about Gardens. There are many different ways you can use this theme to teach different areas. Today I Shared a Fun activity that can be used in a pretend play area or in the real life experience Science area. You can read about it here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Thecreativecampus/ I would like to hear what your favorite activities are for This Theme?  Do you use it for real life experiences?  or Do you use it to engage Pretend Play?  Leave me a comment and Let's Get This Learning and Growing Conversation Started! Have a great day!  Your Creativity Producer and Professional Mess Maker! Theresa @ The Creative Campus!

Gardens is a theme that you can use several times.  you can use it to talk about food or you can use it to talk about flowers and plants. To be honest, I'm not sure which is more fun. I like to offer dirt in the sensory area, I leave out material flowers, gloves and garden tools (kids size). I let the kids decide what kind of garden they are gonna create and what they want to put in it. I also like to use this theme as a science experience. I let the kids plant real plants and then over time I encourage them to take care of them as they grow. when they are ready the get planted in the ground. you can further the activity by cooking with their produce.  These are just a Few of my favorite ways to work with this theme. Bugs and plants as a theme is one of the few that i get a little carried away with. You can use it for so many things in so many ways. the fun is endless from scavenger hunts to Gross motor and everything in between. Some of my favorite ways to use this theme...

Hi Everyone!  I just wanted to share with you a part of a new blog series I started, called 5 Activities. Each post will give 5 activities to use for a specific topic. I hope you enjoy these posts and I look forward to your comments! Science: Dino Bone Dig   I have use this one over the years. I have enjoyed doing this activity myself. you can find different types of bones or fossils and burry them in your sand table. give each child brushes or scoops to dig out each bone and build a creature. You can use the fossils (objects work too) and press them into playdough to make your own fossils. this is a fun hands on science activity that allows the children to learn about why some things fossilize and some don't. Grow Flowers or Plants. Provide seeds or already started plants. encourage the children to care for their plants daily. As the plants grow and produce food the children will enjoy the rewards of their work. Cook Simple Meals Or Make Playdough: this is fun ...

Welcome Back!  I have something for you that I think your really going to enjoy! I know I am very excited to use it in class with my friends!  I call it "Scrap Art". As you see it IS exactly what it sounds like! What I love about this is that the possibilities are ENDLESS. you can create anything with it that your mind can think up. The best thing is, it can be stretched or simplified for ANY age! you can make larger more abstract objects with older children using smaller objects. for younger children (as we did above) you can provide pre cut "Parts" to the art and allow then to decorate with the provided art supplies. I love to use confetti, Tissue Paper, Dry Pasta, Straws. I could go on and on! In this version, we allowed the older children to create whatever they wanted. We provided them with contact paper, Wiggle Eyes and Recycled Art Work. Then the children cut them into whatever shapes they wanted. This is a fantastic art activity that works on all s...

Its May Friends! This means summer is almost here! I love this time of year, because there are so many things going on around us that the opportunities to learn are endless. Flowers are growing, Trees are budding, Gardens are being planted and Animals and Bugs are Coming out to Play! These are all things that children are fascinated by and want to learn more about. I recently did some fun activities that used a lot of these experiences (even if they were pretend versions). I recently made some "Grass" for my friends to play in. In our grass we had "Bugs" which my friends squished and dug for in our grass. We had lots of things to find in our grass: Spiders, Ants, Snails and so many more! can you see  all the different things? This kept my friends busy for a very long time which was exciting to watch. After they were with this we wanted to turn some of the things we saw in the grass, into art.   so some of my friends made "Flowers" w...

Spring is a great time of year, to learn about so many different areas of science. Bugs, plants, Animals. Everything is coming alive and opening up opportunities for questions and learning. I always like to find fun ways to bring the outside IN to my classrooms. A fun way to do this is be creating gardens Inside! these can be pretend or they can be Real. if you want to pretend. you can provide sand/soil in a sensory area, with shovels, buckets and pretend flowers. let the children fill the buckets, dig holes, Plant and even burry seeds. Or you can give the children little cups with real tools, dirt and seeds. Teach them to plant and then eventually care for  the plants as they grow. this is a great way to teach responsibility and independence. each day your students or child would have the job of making sure the plant gets watered, and as it grows they would have the job of picking whatever the plant would produce. this is a fun activity no matter if real or fake. I like to use thi...

Spring is a great time to get out and explore the great out doors. New flowers and popping up, animals are coming out and things are growing and changing all around us. This makes great opportunities for learning about  nature. A great way to pull nature into your art is by making Textured Caterpillar's, Flowers and Butterflies. This is a lot easier then it sounds, I like to give my friends shapes that look like Caterpillar's (circles) this might mean giving them a bowl with some paint and dipping the bowl into the paint to stamp circles. Then the fun begins. I like to give my friends cut up straws of different colors, tissue paper, confetti if I have it. any kind of art pieces that will be bumpy or textured. Encourage them to fill in the circles they stamped with the pieces and before they know it, they will have a colorful textured Caterpillar's, Flower or butterfly. Now if your going to do a flower, I like to use glue and let my friends either dip the pieces in the glue ...

Hi Everyone, I hope you have gotten a chance to experience the little bit of spring that seems to be surrounding us. This has been a LONG time coming! I wanted to write a little post for you about  "Green". Most times when we think of green, we think of Monsters, Slime and Of course St Patricks day! I would also like to encourage you to think of Spring when you use green this month! Green can be used to make wonderful Flowers/Plants and Even Animals and Bugs. These are some of my favorite things to make this time of year. If you are looking for something fun, I have a really cute activity over there that uses green along with Lots of other fun spring colors.  We made Rainbows In Pots, using Tissue Paper Squares and pot cut outs on paper. You can also use colored paper punches which would be really fun too. I am going to also be posting about a really fun "green" sensory activity. https://www.facebook.com/thecreativecampuspreschool  Stay Tun...

Hello Everyone! It has been a crazy day around here! Snow, then sleet, Then Ice and now Thunder Storms as a Sit here Writing this! I am not going to be with my little friends today, but I wanted to share a fun idea with you anyway. This one is a "clean" art idea that is totally process. I want you to give your children contact paper if you have it. If not regular paper will work but it will just be normal art. give them squares of colored tissue paper and tell them they are going to make a flower, that if its on tissue paper will double as a sun catcher! they will probably need a little help with the first few pieces, I suggest you show them how to play the pieces flat so they stick. Then just let the kids have a good time sticking pieces on their contact paper till their done. now you can either give them a piece of green construction paper for a stem or you can let them make their own with the tissue as well! up to you. I really like this one and I am going to do this wit...

Happy Friday  Friends, Today was a wonderful day to play with my friends. I was glad to see that some of my friends came to play IN even though it was so nice Outside hehe . Today I wanted to share with you some of the fun things we did. My friends had a lot of fun playing with Bugs, Grass and Garden Tools. If you look really closely you can see that we even had some flowers growing in our grass. my friends enjoyed digging and filling their buckets with the grass  and flowers as well. For our art experience today we decided to make rainbow fish. I figured a nice clean art experience would be a nice change of pace. *clean art is not usually something ms. Theresa leans towards (smile).   I am sad that I won't get to see my friends through the summer because we don't have a classroom, but I will keep sharing my fun ideas with you this way all through the summer. I look forward to hearing from those of you who read this as well. I love learning fun new t...

Happy Friday! Today I had such a wonderful time with my friends. In the spirit of Mother's Day all our activities were things we had mom do With us. We made mother's day flowers which turned out very cute. We went for minimal mess ( at least with our art work  )  today and the children had a blast. I believe in letting our friends use their own creative judgment , even if they are only 2. Some of our friends didn't want to add leaves ( their hand prints) to their flowers. I still think they turned out very cute. we just used old art work that was cut into squares. Tissue paper works great as well.   some of our friends chose to   press their paper out flat to make a different look. I think they all came out very cute.   Meanwhile over in our sensory area my friends were tired of playing with blocks and asked for bugs. so I decided to be a little gutsy and gave them all paint smocks that are water proof and let th...