Innovative tools that stimulate the creativity of children... and their parents!

07 November, 2017

When I created the Les Belles Combines tools for my children, it was important to me that these tools, in addition to fulfilling the function for which they were designed, promote the overall development of my children and stimulate their creativity. I wanted my children to be at the center of their learning and not just become well-behaved little beings ready to obey my orders. It was important, among other things, that their creativity be stimulated so that they would be able to find solutions to their problems themselves. A creative child is necessarily more autonomous and has greater confidence in their ability to succeed. To quote my blogging accomplice Isabelle Maheux, "creativity is not just the art of developing one's artistic talents, but of finding solutions to problems and perceiving the world in one's own way."

Here are some tips to develop your children's creativity and use Les Belles Combines tools to their full potential:

The family planner is the ultimate tool for learning to organize as a family! Like all Les Belles Combines tools, it is also an excellent pretext to stimulate children's creativity! The small space allotted to the "Word of the Week" is an excellent way to do this. Here, we like to write a new vocabulary word or a common expression and challenge our children to use it in a conversation during the week. When they succeed, we reward them with a token in the General Store! This is how our six-year-old Louis used the expression "It's like looking for a needle in a haystack" while looking for his yo-yo in the completely messy playroom! A child who has vocabulary and can use it appropriately finds it much easier to express their ideas.

Another way to stimulate their inventiveness is to invite them to find small missions to do throughout the week: a good deed, a personal challenge, a household chore... This way, your child will learn to identify their small areas to work on and to surpass themselves.

The General Store

The General Store, our positive reinforcement big box store, is the ultimate way to stimulate children's good deeds. By using it, you will give your children small challenges so that they participate more in family life. To encourage their creative spirit, why not ask them from time to time to think for themselves about what they could do to collaborate more in family life? You will be surprised to see your children use their creativity to get the desired reward. They will find a ton of good deeds to do to accumulate the tokens needed to get the reward, or they will test, among siblings, different mathematical equations to accumulate their tokens and together buy a privilege or a higher value reward. This is how Laurier and Simone accumulated their tokens to buy the new puzzle in the "20 tokens" section of our store: a great way to learn both to count and to solve problems!

The Calm Return Kit is a wonderful tool when it comes to teaching our children to manage their emotions. Invite your children to use their creativity to find ways to calm themselves down. My son decided to put a small box of Legos in our kit. Simone, meanwhile, discovered that drawing allowed her to calm down. So we added some sheets and coloring pencils for her.

In the kit, there is also a series of restorative actions that allow us to make amends for a wrong done to someone. Several actions are proposed, but some tickets have been left blank so you can personalize them. Why not invite your child to use their imagination and suggest that they find new ways to apologize for a mistake?

Ultimately, you will be surprised to see how much Les Belles Combines tools will push you to become creative parents yourselves!

 

When I created the Les Belles Combines tools for my children, it was important to me that these tools, in addition to fulfilling the function for which they were designed, promote the overall development of my children and stimulate their creativity. I wanted my children to be at the center of their learning and not just become well-behaved little beings ready to obey my orders. It was important, among other things, that their creativity be stimulated so that they would be able to find solutions to their problems themselves. A creative child is necessarily more autonomous and has greater confidence in their ability to succeed. To quote my blogging accomplice Isabelle Maheux, "creativity is not just the art of developing one's artistic talents, but of finding solutions to problems and perceiving the world in one's own way."

Here are some tips to develop your children's creativity and use Les Belles Combines tools to their full potential:

The family planner is the ultimate tool for learning to organize as a family! Like all Les Belles Combines tools, it is also an excellent pretext to stimulate children's creativity! The small space allotted to the "Word of the Week" is an excellent way to do this. Here, we like to write a new vocabulary word or a common expression and challenge our children to use it in a conversation during the week. When they succeed, we reward them with a token in the General Store! This is how our six-year-old Louis used the expression "It's like looking for a needle in a haystack" while looking for his yo-yo in the completely messy playroom! A child who has vocabulary and can use it appropriately finds it much easier to express their ideas.

Another way to stimulate their inventiveness is to invite them to find small missions to do throughout the week: a good deed, a personal challenge, a household chore... This way, your child will learn to identify their small areas to work on and to surpass themselves.

The General Store

The General Store, our positive reinforcement big box store, is the ultimate way to stimulate children's good deeds. By using it, you will give your children small challenges so that they participate more in family life. To encourage their creative spirit, why not ask them from time to time to think for themselves about what they could do to collaborate more in family life? You will be surprised to see your children use their creativity to get the desired reward. They will find a ton of good deeds to do to accumulate the tokens needed to get the reward, or they will test, among siblings, different mathematical equations to accumulate their tokens and together buy a privilege or a higher value reward. This is how Laurier and Simone accumulated their tokens to buy the new puzzle in the "20 tokens" section of our store: a great way to learn both to count and to solve problems!

The Calm Return Kit is a wonderful tool when it comes to teaching our children to manage their emotions. Invite your children to use their creativity to find ways to calm themselves down. My son decided to put a small box of Legos in our kit. Simone, meanwhile, discovered that drawing allowed her to calm down. So we added some sheets and coloring pencils for her.

In the kit, there is also a series of restorative actions that allow us to make amends for a wrong done to someone. Several actions are proposed, but some tickets have been left blank so you can personalize them. Why not invite your child to use their imagination and suggest that they find new ways to apologize for a mistake?

Ultimately, you will be surprised to see how much Les Belles Combines tools will push you to become creative parents yourselves!