How To Teach Creative Subjects When Homeschooling

Teaching creative subjects is one of the biggest challenges for many homeschool parents. If you are not a particularly creative person yourself, the idea of encouraging your kids to be creative can be daunting. Sometimes it comes naturally to children and they won’t need that much direction, but not everybody has those natural creative skills. If you are struggling with subjects like art or creative writing, here are some great ways to improve your lessons…

Start With Inspiration 

Before you challenge your children to create something of their own, you could give them some inspiration. Why not take a virtual ‘field trip’ tour to an art gallery, for example? They can see some examples of different art styles and get some ideas for their own pictures. It’s also a good opportunity to teach them a bit of history, so you’re broadening their education even further. 

If you’re looking to encourage them to do some creative writing, you just need to do a lot of reading. Read a wide range of different genres and try to find inspiring kid’s books for them. Reading is obviously a big part of your child’s education and it will help them with their creative lessons too. 

Give Them Prompts 

If you simply ask your children to draw a picture or write a story, it can be very daunting. When they don’t have a clue where to start, they’re likely to have a creative block. That’s why you should give them prompts so they have a jumping off point. You can find some great narrative writing prompts for 4th grade that will help them generate ideas and flex their creative muscles. As they practice more and gain confidence, they won’t need these prompts as much. When it comes to drawing and painting, it’s easy to find prompts around the house or go out into the garden and get them to paint a scene. Sometimes, kids just need that starting point to help get the creative juices flowing. 

Incorporate It Into Other Lessons 

Finding ways to build creativity into other lessons is a good way to help your child develop their skills. It also makes other subjects more interesting and gets your child to engage with them more. For example, if you are teaching a history lesson, why not have your child draw a picture of the person you are learning about? Alternatively, they could write a fictional story using characters from history. By getting your child to use creative skills outside of structured creative lessons, you take the pressure off and show them how important creativity can be. 

Display Their Work 

Confidence is very important when trying to get your child to be creative. If you display your child’s creative work, it helps to boost their confidence, so why not put up their pictures around your homeschool classroom or have their stories printed in a book? The other big benefit of displaying their work is that it allows them to see their improvement. We don’t often realize how much we have improved at something because we forget what our skills were like when we first started. Seeing that progression up on the wall will be a huge help for your child. 

Teaching creative subjects can be tough, but hopefully these tips will help. If you have other ideas, share them in comments!  

*This is a collaborative post