Using creativity to add awareness and fun to your summer and summer camps.

This year families are planning to return to a summer of more familiar routines. The first priority is filling your child’s schedule with activities, coordinating with friends and matching summer camps to your child’s interests. Will it be a sports camp, art camp, or theatre camp?  The options are truly endless. This year may bring different challenges as some offerings of years past may have disappeared due to struggles of 2020.

In the rush to fill your child’s summer with a mix of in-person and online summer camps, stop to reflect. Pull back from the calendar you set to assess your summer as a whole. Do the activities reflect the values you have for your family? Is your child’s schedule filled largely with competitive sports without a balance of  more reflective or awareness building activities? Is charity among your family values? Are charitable activities included in your summer? Is family connection among your values and do your summer plans reflect that?

No matter what your summer choices include, think about adding some creative moments.  By making an activity– any activity, extraordinary, you can make it a creative exercise. Even getting to the car can be a creative experience. Announce to your family one evening that in the morning, you challenge them to go to the car in a way they’ve never done before. This can be as simple as skipping or stopping every two steps. If you give your family examples, the examples can not be used. Making any activity an extraordinary one exercises creativity. Family walks can be made more creative by making the walk extraordinary. Include a challenge to look for a flower, rock or landscape element you have not noticed before. These simple challenges and most, if not all, creative activities provide opportunities to make us more aware and help to slow us down to appreciate the moment.

I wish you a happy summer, filled with creative moments. Email rita@artmoki.com if you have art or creativity topics you would like to hear from me about. 

Live (both meanings) art!