February is the month of love. This week I will be experiencing many different types of love through the celebration of relationships and family ties during the Lunar New Year and Valentines Day. It is also the start of lent as Ash Wednesday falls on Wednesday this week and time to go on my yearly Lentern journey.
Love is something which is really very complicated. It affects one on many different degrees. There are many forms of love~ romantic love, brotherly love, self love and love for GOD.
This year my aim for Lent is to deepen my Spiritual love of GOD during this 40 days I will be doing more reflection on the scripture readings and learning more about his selfless love for mankind. We will start our weekly family night prayer session where we read and pray together as a family.
Though our love for GOD we will be able to gather strength that we need to see us through the obstacles that we face in life. We will also be able to understand and show our love to those that really matter to us.
What type of love are your focusing on?
These week’s music theme is on love and I’m sharing you a tune by the talent Taiwanese singer. Rachel Liang
Creative thinking is what is necessary in the adult world. It is a generative process. It honors intuition without leaving out analysis. It uses data but also looks for larger patterns. It is flexible yet fluent. Unfortunately it is something which is not taught in school.
Learners construct their own knowledge in their heads. Children must literally create (and re-create) their knowledge.
The authors introduce us to the nine elements of the Sensory Alphabet-line, rhythm, space, movement, texture, color, shape and light. Everything can be described using these terms. It is this Alphabet that is not taught to children which makes them unable to develop their creative thinking skills.
The Sensory Alphabet makes up patterns with links to our senses which our brain assigns meaning and values. Interesting isn’t it. The usage of the Sensory Alphabet is not limited to just the ARTS but can be incorporated into our daily lives.
Sensory vocabulary that is picked up by a child expands their capability to see patterns- between disparate objects, cultures and values. It opens up their perception and gives them a multi faceted view of the world around them.
Creativity and imagination are the crucial pats of what children need to think critically, solve problems and make their own decisions. They need these skills to be able to function well in society.
The importance of play is stressed upon to develop a child’s creativity. The authors quote from Herbert 2009 that play can
develop empathy and appreciation of diverse viewpoints.
is the beginning of abstract thinking.
improves problem solving and comprehension.
is essential for young children and becomes creative fluency in older children and adults
is a rich context for developing metacognitive skills.
There is a wide selection of suggested activities which parents can carry out with their kids to strengthen their grasp of the nine elements of the Sensory Alphabet. Some of this activities can be carried out during the course of daily activities and do not need to be specially created.
My thoughts
I didn’t know that such a thing as a Sensory Alphabet existed before reading this book. I found the information that the authors presented extremely useful and intend to teach the Sensory Alphabet to my kids to improve their creative thinking.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of the book for review purposes. All opinions are 100% my own. This post has a compensation level of 3. Please visit Dominique’s Disclosure page for more information.
by Susan Marcus, Susie Monday and Cynthia Herbert , PhD was a really refreshing read for me.