Feeling inspired by The Imagination Tree and their post on their Creative Arts area and gallery for kids, I thought I would share with you all our take on it at our home. Our house is pretty small – a 3 bedroom bungalow…so as much as I would LOVE to have a wee area devoted to creating, I have had to make do with several child friendly areas around our kitchen! We already had all of this in place, so I’m afraid it’s a bit messy and not really photo / blog perfect, but hopefully you’ll get the idea!

Like Anna from The Imagination Tree I used to be a teacher and co ordinating The Arts was one of my areas of responsibility in the school, and I guess that has kind of followed me home. I want my kiddiewinks to always have access to materials which allow them to be independently creative. When they are being creative they are learning so many valuable life long skills (all you teachers out there will love that 😉 ) all while developing thinking skills! (again you teachers will just love those buzz words, eh?!)

So, grab a cuppa and enjoy a quick wee tour of the little pockets of opportunities in our home:

First things first – Our Art Gallery…..kinds of speaks for itself….a place for us to display our works of art…ideally I would like to have some of these framed, but at the moment the rate at which J, S and L are producing pieces does not really allow for that! I WILL frame some eventually though 🙂

I have allocated a few of our ground level cupboards to the kids – this means that they can get access to the materials which they want to use for creating……

We also have a little rail and plant pots from Ikea positioned at a child friendly level…these contain crayons, colouring pencils and felt tips (missing from pic!).

When we were repainting out kitchen I got hubster to paint one end cupboard with chalkboard paint to allow J, S and L to have a chalkboard available 24/7 for making their mark!

This is the other ground level cupboard which they have access to for their junk ark……

And another cupboard where they can choose paper / card for their project. The bottom shelf is our play dough shelf which again they have free access to.

I am afraid I have not got our paints easily accessible for the children, I know, I know, I really should BUT there is just something in me that just can’t!!! For now, my excuse is an 18 month old in the house 😉

And lastly, we always have out in our kitchen our little table and chairs, which are used for so many different things….we got these again in Ikea.

So, there we go….not quite as impressive as the fabulous Imagination Tree to be fair….so make sure you pop over there to have a look!

Time now to go tackle the mountain of laundry that awaits me……

Happy Monday y’all!