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| Character Journal No.20 | Creativity |
The Character Journal is a monthly e-zine designed to help parents teach Biblical character qualities to their children. Each month a different character quality is presented with suggestions for Bible lessons and projects. The length of time you spend teaching these principles to your children each day is not nearly as important as your sincerity and consistency. Begin each time with a relevant hymn or chorus. Then take a verse, theme or story from the suggestions below as the basis for your daily "Bible Time" with your family. Give relevant application of the lesson to your family; and don't forget to ask your children the questions: Who? What? Where? Why? When? and How? Get each member of the family involved by assigning different verses to be read. Finally, conclude your time with family prayer.
Bible Verses Related to Creativity
Spend an evening (or several) looking at just one of these verses at a time. Discuss with your family what each verse or story teaches about the character quality; and give vital application of how this quality can be applied to your family. Choose several verses to memorise together as a family during the month. Since the English word "creativity" does not appear in the Authorised Version, we have included a list of verses which relate to this important character quality. For a more complete study, we suggest you use the Online Bible which you can download free of charge from our web site at http://www.hlm.org/html/files.htm.
-Ideas from the Boulden Family
at Home
at Work/School
at Church
The "I Wills" of Creativity
-Character First! Education Series 2
To begin to measure the immeasurable is from the beginning a hopelessly futile undertaking. But as we try to comprehend things too awesome for our finite minds, let us begin with something familiar: a summer storm. The delay between the sight of the flash of the lightning and the sound of thunder demonstrates the great difference between the speed of light and the speed of sound. In one second, while sound can travel only 300 feet, light can reach 186,000 miles away. It would take sound 36 hours to circumscribe the earth – 25,000 miles – but light, in one second, could make the same journey 7½ times. Keep this concept of the speed of light in mind as we consider the universe and its amazing dimensions.
Our beloved planet, the earth, is one of 9 planets in our solar system. We revolve around the sun, which burns at 20 million degrees F. – a temperature so fierce that if a marble were heated up to the same temperature it would fry everyone and everything in a city the size of Philadelphia. Situated 93 million miles away, our sun provides the perfect amount of light and heat. Its rays, travelling at 186,000 miles per second, take 8½ minutes to reach the earth and cross our entire solar system, 6,000 million miles, in one and a half hours.
Our solar system is an infinitesimal part of the galaxy called the Milky-Way – a swirling myriad of stars estimated at 100 billion. While it takes only 1½ hours for light to cross our solar system, our galaxy is so vast that it would take 100,000 years for light to span the distance from one edge to the other. While our sun is a mere 8½ light minutes away, the next nearest star is 4½ light years from us. The light we see today actually left that star 4½ years ago. If the earth were represented by a sphere only one inch in diameter, that star (Alpha Centaury) would have to be placed 51,000 miles away. And that is the nearest star. In our galaxy alone there are over 100 billion stars. If you counted 250 of them every minute – day and night – it would take you 1,000 years to count them all. And most of them dwarf our sun in size. If our sun were hollow, I million earths could fit inside; but astronomers have discovered a star so big that 500 million of our suns would be required to fill it.
In all its magnitude and splendour, our galaxy with its billions of stars and incomprehensible size, is rather insignificant in the universe. There are actually billions and maybe even trillions of such galaxies in space – each with at least 100 billion stars. The nearest galaxy to ours, Andronema, is ½ million light years away, a distance so great if every man, woman and child in the United States had a library of 65,000 volumes, there would be more miles separating our galaxies than all the letters in all the words in all the books in all those libraries – and that is only the nearest galaxy out of billions. The most distant galaxy that has been discovered is 8 billion light years away, so far removed that it is only one millionth the brightness it would take to be seen by the human eye.
On the clearest night we can see at the most 3,200 stars in the sky, an impressive sight in itself. But consider this: a man looking up at the sky on a clear night sees as much of the universe as a protozoan – a one-celled animal – might see of the ocean in which it drifts. The moon, the planets and the few thousand stars which are visible to him are as a single drop of water in the boundless sea of the universe. Think of it – what we see on even the clearest night is as a mere drop of water in the ocean in comparison to all there is out there.
And consider this: if the distance from the earth to the sun, 93 million miles, could be represented by the thickness of a piece of paper, the distance to the nearest star would be a stack of paper 71 feet high. The diameter of our galaxy would be a pile 310 miles high, and the edge of the known universe would be a stack of paper 31 million miles high, a third of the way to the sun.
If only unbelieving man would lift up his eyes to marvel at the heavens, it would do his soul much good. For staring into the void above him, man faces concepts like infinity and eternity, where science and imagination stand together on the drink of darkness. Then indeed he can but echo the philosopher, Schiller – "The universe is a thought of God."
And if we are awed by this created universe, how much more should we be awed by its Creator Who by the word of His power, without effort, brought it into existence where once there was nothing.
"And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so."
And this Creator desires us to walk with Him.
Compiled from various sources
TOYS YOU DON'T HAVE TO BUY
1. Shops. Save all your empty grocery cartons for a week or so and you'll soon have a shop any aspiring grocer would be proud of. Gluing down the flaps makes cereal boxes, jelly packets etc. look unopened. Clothes, shoes, and toys can all be used as "stock". Paper bags and real or play money add to the fun.2. Doctors/Nurses. A roll of white toilet tissue makes this game much more fun as Dads, Grans, teddies or dolls are bandaged before your eyes. Plastic medicine spoons and cardboard box hospital beds for toys are extra props that make the game last longer.
3. Tubes. Cardboard tubes from kitchen roll or foil make instant telescopes for sailors, or tunnels to roll marbles through.
4. Cardboard boxes must be about the best free toys you can get hold of. Push in the ends of large ones to make tunnels and caves to crawl through. Draw on windows and doors with felt tip pens to make a house, add a flag and portholes for a boat or paper plates and a steering wheel for a car.
5. Miniature gardens. The foil trays that pies and prepared foods arrive in make lovely containers for miniature gardens. The children can enjoy hunting around the park or garden for twigs to make trees, moss for a lawn, stones to arrange as a rockery or a waterfall. Keep twigs or stones where you want them with a little blue tack or plasticine. Add toy people or animals and maybe a little water if the container is watertight. This can be a very creative and enjoyable exercise if you have children of very different age groups to entertain. A variation is to use play sand (not builder's sand - it stains everything yellow) to make a beach scene, maybe adding shells, stones and a blue paper sea.
6
. Paper puppets. A picture of anything - colourful bird, clown's face, animal or cartoon character, carefully cut out by an adult and stuck to the top of a strip of card about five inches long and one and a half inches wide becomes a very easily made puppet. These give such pleasure and are so easy to make that you will probably end up with dozens of them. Magazine pictures can be stuck on to folded card to make theatre set background and wings.7. Potato prints. After cutting a potato in half, draw on a simple shape. A triangle, circle or star perhaps. Cut away the rest of the potato, leaving a shape to dip into paint and print on to paper.
8. Skittles. Skittles can be improvised from large plastic cola or lemonade bottles. A little sand or water in the bottom makes them more stable. A good game for learning to count.
9. Dens. Building a den must be one of the most memorable parts of childhood as we all seem to recall the bliss of blankets draped over the airing rack in the garden or over the backs of chairs indoors. Even today's sophisticated kids seem to find the thought much more exciting than just erecting the shop bought plastic play house. I think the secret is to give structural advice about making the thing stay upright, but let the children do as much as possible themselves. Really large boxes of the type that washing machines and fridges come in can be had for the asking from the big electrical goods retailers and are useful for rooms within dens. Indoors, one of the simplest dens can be made by throwing a large sheet or duvet over a table. Cushions, torches, biscuits and books will all be needed at the housewarming.
10. Sewing cards. Stick a picture on to a postcard or draw a simple duck, car or teddy shape. With a bodkin needle push holes around the outline of your design about one inch apart. Using brightly coloured wool in the bodkin or a long bootlace, thread in and out of the holes.
11. Stilts. You need to do a little drilling for this one. Take two strong tins, coffee or clean paint tins are ideal, and drill a hole about one inch from the top on opposite sides of the tin. Insert a length of string and knot securely. Check that the handle is at a comfortable length for the child before knotting the other side. These are always very popular, but never leave young children alone with them especially near stairs or steps.
12. Cafes. Children's tea sets are a handy prop for this game, but a picnic set or microwave cookware is just as good. Giving the waiter/waitress a little notebook and pencil to take orders and making a tall white hat from a cylinder of paper for the chef will add realism. Sit dolls and teddies around as well as willing Aunts and Grannies for extra customers.
13. Playdough. Mix together two cups of flour, one cup of salt, one cup of water, one tablespoon of oil and a few drops of food colouring for an easy to make dough that will keep for about three weeks if you wrap it in polythene and keep it in the fridge. All you have to do is knead the mixture well. Divide the mixture up first if you have more than one colour available.
14. Obstacle course. An obstacle course can turn a rainy day into an adventure. Use whatever you have available. A bench to walk the plank, cushion stepping stones across shark infested seas, through a cardboard box tunnel, up a chair mountain or through a duvet cave. The wilder your imagination the more your children will love it.
15. Easy boats. Recycle your empty margarine cartons. Use them as boats for the bath or paddling pool. These are so easy that even very young children can help to make them. Cut out triangular sail shapes from white or coloured paper. Make a small hole at the top and bottom of the sail so that you can push through a straw to make a mast. Let the child fix this to the bottom of a clean margarine tub with a lump of blue tack or plasticine. They sail extremely well and will even take a couple of toy people on an exciting cruise.
16. Leaf art. Collect leaves and draw around them. This is fun for little ones and an educational tree identification game for older children. Colour in the details with crayons or paints. The leaves could then be stuck on to paper collage style or dipped into paint and then pressed firmly on to paper for a lovely leaf print.
17. Make a puzzle. Stick a favourite picture on to card and allow to dry with a heavy book on top. Cut into pieces, how many depending on the age of the child, for an almost instant and personal puzzle.
Colleen Moulding
Three Probing Questions
-Character Clues Game, IBLP
How Creative Are You?
Can you make a perfect square by moving only one match?
There are many creative solutions to this problem.
Here's one solution: Move the bottom match only slightly down to form a perfectly square space made up of the ends of the 4 matches.www.mindbloom.com
A creative mind is usually one that is active. Creating
an active mind is not difficult - you just need to exercise it on a regular basis in order
for you to go beyond mediocre thinking. Below are some interesting exercises designed to
bring out the best in creative thinking. Try your hardest to resist looking at the answers
until you have a solution (if you can). Enjoy...
ANSWERS
www.mindbloom.com
The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
One of the most effective ways to encourage good character is to praise your children for even the smallest display of any character quality. Criticism creates insecurities, bitterness and rebellion; but praise creates an atmosphere of love, joy and acceptance.
The son of one of my college professors asked a very profound question about his little newborn brother. He said, "Mum, does he know who he is, or does he just lie there and think he's nothing?" He doesn't have the slightest idea who he is. The only way that little child will ever know what he is like, whether he is worth anything or not is to look in the mirror. And during those early years, that mirror is the significant people who stand around him, primarily his parents. That's why it's so important to replace our natural tendency to criticise with praise.
It's amazing what a little bit of praise can do to encourage a son or a daughter. And if you can’t think of anything to praise your children for, then ask the Lord or ask your wife to show you areas where you can praise that child. Someone has said that even a conceited person has at least one good quality - he doesn’t talk about other people. So praise your children for even the smallest display of any character quality.
Proverbs 27:21 says, "[As] the fining pot for silver, and the furnace for gold; so [is] a man to his praise." What this verse tells us is that praise is a purifier. It motivates those we praise to develop more of that same quality. That’s why you need to be very careful what you praise your children for; because whatever you praise you will get more of. If you laugh at a child’s rude behavior, you will get more of that same rude behaviour. But if you continually praise a child for his truthfulness and his diligence then you’re going to get more of these positive qualities.
Praise is one of the most powerful motivators for good character. One Christian leader has said that you need to praise ten times just to balance the damage of one negative, critical remark. So replace those negative, critical words with encouragement and praise; and give your children a motivation for showing more good character.