Creativity in Kids, Part II

More thoughts on the creative mind, and how we see it in action through our kids.  I will first link you to this large and information-packed article we found in Newsweek last year, about the state of children's creativity today, how it can be improved, and how it leads to success later in life.

It's interesting to think of the jewelry-making we do as 'play', but it absolutely is!  It also gets kids thinking and talking about the friends, sisters, moms, aunts, and even brothers and dads who they may have decided to give their projects to.

Based in my experience as a teacher, I'd say it takes an extra step of emotional creativity to not only choose bead colors and patterns, but to choose them based on what they know that their loved one would prefer:

"In early childhood, distinct types of free play are associated with high creativity. Preschoolers who spend more time in role-play (acting out characters) have higher measures of creativity: voicing someone else’s point of view helps develop their ability to analyze situations from different perspectives. 

When creative children have a supportive teacher—someone tolerant of unconventional answers, occasional disruptions, or detours of curiosity—they tend to excel. When they don’t, they tend to underperform and drop out of high school or don’t finish college at high rates."


Lots to think about, whether you're a parent, a teacher, or both!  Do you think creativity is less automatic for today's kids than it used to be? 


See also: Summer Fun-Test Your Creativity (Part 1 of these creativity articles) 

Make Jewelry in Beautiful San Clemente with Us This Summer!

Enroll your child in one of our summer class offerings in San Clemente!

• Jewelry Making for Beginners (young children- K-2nd): Our Jewelry Making for Beginners class encourages children to explore their creativity through an introduction to interesting colors, textures, and age-appropriate jewelry-making techniques.  This class is designed not only to entertain, but to improve hand-eye coordination, small muscle development, and pattern-making skills in a relaxed, encouraging environment! 

Learning new techniques.



Beaded Comb: a fun project for little hands!

•  Jewelry Designers (2nd grade & up-teens/tweens): Create customized, stylish jewelry ready for you and your friends to wear!  Become your own jewelry designer, where you can choose from a huge selection of hot colors, textures, and unique beads to make one-of-a kind pieces. Our classes are designed not only to be fun, but to let you in on some of the most popular jewelry making techniques, such as wire work, beading, felting, fingerknitting, and stamping and dapping.  

San Clemente Schedule and Location: 

• Jewelry Making for Beginners, 6 Sessions Every Wednesday from June 29th-August 3rd from 3:30pm-4:30pm
• Jewelry Designers, 6 Sessions Every Wednesday from June 29th-August 3rd from 4:30pm-5:30pm. 
• Adult-Child Stamping and Dapping, Saturday July 9th AND August 6th 10:30am-12:30pm, Saturday May 21 10:30am-12:30pm

All San Clemente classes will take place at 100 North Calle Seville San Clemente Ca 92672 (click for map)

The Fairy Festival!

We had a really nice time making necklaces, bracelets and free stretch rings at this past weekend's Fairy Festival, and wanted to share just a few pictures! The fairy costumes were incredibly cute and many, many girls walked away proud of their new rings.

I thought this was so funny

A fairy perusing the options on our bracelet-necklace table

Mini fairy on the right checking out what the older girls are doing! 

A very jewelry-oriented young lady hard at work on a stretch ring.

Thank you parents and kids for making this a successful event!  See us next at the Del Mar fair this coming Tuesday, June 28th and Saturday, July 2nd.

Summer Fun: Test Your Creativity!

In a two-part blog entry, we are going to step away from the ordinary a bit and talk about what drives our kids to get innovative and creative. Providing children with a classroom atmosphere that generates creativity is a crucial part of what we do.  Like I always say, one of the most satisfying part of teaching these classes is the fascinating process of watching kids MAKE THEIR OWN CHOICES.  Whether a child decides on beads, colors, designs and pattern instantaneously, or needs five solid minutes looking at the bead trays in silence, each little student's mind is full of choice-making in that hour of class.

Before we share a little bit of interesting information on the science of creativity and the state of it in today's world, try THIS TEST(Click here) and evaluate your own creativity!  This is a standardized psychological test that measures creativity in the same way that the well-known IQ tests measure intelligence and aptitude.  Try it out and stay tuned next week for some more information and thoughts on this topic!

Now Hiring in Encinitas/Solana Beach Area!

We are looking for instructors in the Solana Beach/Encinitas Area of San Diego! Please come join our team!


Read all the details in the posting below:
http://sandiego.craigslist.org/nsd/edu/2440543937.html


And please don't hesitate to email us with any questions, at brenna@jewelrybydfly.com or molly@jewelrybydfly.com. 

The Teacher's Learning Curve

We got a very thorough training recently on the projects we'll be teaching at this summer's jewelry camps, taught by the experts in San Francisco who flew down for the day!

It was rather enjoyable and humbling to experience the trial-and-error of practicing these techniques.You can sometimes start out a confused, blank slate, and then after a few rounds of practice, suddenly you've made something cute and wearable!  I've photographed some of my own pieces from that day, to show this repetitive learning process, and also show some previews of our camp projects. 

The first wool ball I rolled...

The wool felted ball project is so much fun. It involves compressing these clouds of different-colored fibers until they're really solid and mostly spherical!  Much easier said than done. My first attempt, seen above, was far from round despite my best efforts. Nor do they need to be perfect, but I was definitely going for more roundness. I was little more successful in my second round, and I plan to incorporate these both into jewelry: 

Second wool ball!

Above is my little charm made by stamping and dapping.  This technique definitely requires practice; hand-stamping letters and designs into copper or sterling silver. You can clearly see the two initials on the sides, but there WAS a letter 'F' in the middle, which all but disappeared after I rounded the flat disc with a dapping block and hammer.  Same with the pattern of leaves, they disappeared.  I like this pendant anyway, and I know how to improve next time and keep my letters clear!

One of my favorite projects in copper etching, as seen above.  We use a metal-etchant solution to carve basically any pattern, lettering or design into copper pieces, and I've practiced this one alot before our training last week.  This piece was everything you'd hope for as a result: a nice, clearly defined pattern, achieved by a few hints and tips that I certainly didn't know my first time doing this one!

So, I just wanted to illustrate the learning process that we teachers go through ourselves, before the knowledge reaches our students.  See you in camp!

Dragonfly Designs at the Fairy Festival!

Come see us this coming Wednesday, June 18th, from 10am-1:30pm for the Fairy Festival at Quail Gardens in Encinitas!

A lovely pic from the 2007 Festival from www.nelyphoto.com

For a small fee, you can make pieces of jewelry with us there, view and buy our jewelry collection, and place orders for personalized sterling silver pieces like this one:

For more info and directions to Quail Gardens, see the event website - Click here.   Email molly@jewelrybydfly.com with any questions about what we are offering, and see you there!