Creativity @ Home | 10 Ways to Celebrate | World Creativity and Innovation Day

10 Ways to Celebrate Creativity at Home

Creativity & Innovation Day April 21 Worldwide is a chance for you, your family and friends to celebrate your creativity.

Dinner with a Twist

Did you know chewing helps stimulate brain function? What better time to stimulate creative juices than when everyone is at the dinner table? Imagine the conversation you'll have as you dine on your creations. There are many ways to be creative about your meal. The key thing is to break a pattern - thought patterns, eating patterns, cooking patterns. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Here are some ideas for your dinner with a twist.

Pot Luck Twist
Host a Creativity and Innovation Day Pot Luck with a Twist Dinner and make it your most creative dinner ever?
- Ask each guest to bring one ingredient from one of the following categories - vegetable, fruit, protein (meat, fish, poultry, tofu etc.), starch (potatoes, pasta, bread). Once all of your guests and the ingredients arrive create a menu based on the ingredients you have. Its crazy, fun and you'll be surprised how delicious your creation is.
- Ask each guest to bring a dish based on a theme with some twists.
Choose a theme and then add some twists:
- I) Living Like Leonardo. (Go to www.mos.org/leonardo/bio.html to find out more about Leonardo.)
  
  Twists: Dishes that
  - Look better in the mirror than straight on
  - Can only be eaten with the left hand
  - Is Incomplete (many of Da Vinci's works were incomplete)
- II) Now for Something Completely Different.
  This meal is all about making changes
  - finding new and different ways to prepare your meal and the meal itself.
  
  Twists:
  - Use a different method (bake a cake on the BBQ)
  - Change the order of the meal
  - Try something you've never tried before
  - Eat in a different room
  - Put away all of your plates and cutlery and find new ways to eat.
  - Eat blindfolded
  - Have a blindfolded friend feed you.
  - Use the hand you never use.
  - Change the colour of the meal (Mash up some herbs to make your mashed potatoes green, black pasta, cook your pasta in beet juice)
  - Tie one hand behind your back.

Click a Pic Taking a picture is as creative as you want to make it. What’s your perspective? Here are some ideas:

A Creative Day in the Life Scrapbook.
Give each member of your family (or friends) one half hour each with a Camera. Ask them to take pictures according to one of the following
themes:
1. Our family. How might our family be defined? Who are we? What are our interests? How do we live? How do we play? How do we interact? How do we use our feet?
2. Our home. What is the most interesting place in our home? Which room, piece of furniture or thing makes a statement about us? Which space is our most creative?
Once all of the pictures have been taken, ask each person to tell their story
About their perspectives and put the pics in the scrapbook.
Inspiring Faces
Ask each person to take pics of faces that inspire them. The faces could be of people, animals or buildings. After each person shares why they find the face inspiring, create a collage for the kitchen wall for inspiration everyday.

For really inspiring faces take a trip to the Zoo?

Gratitude Latitude
If you want to encourage a person to change their behaviour you are best to praise them and thank them eight times more frequently than you normally do.

Think of all of the ways to give a compliment, say thank you and express gratitude. Make the longest list you possibly can. Let your thoughts percolate for a few hours and then go back to the list and add more. So far we’ve identified 108 different ways to give praise. How many different ways have you found?

Wish

Encourage everyone to dream about the greatest, biggest, most far reaching wish they can think of. And then encourage them to express, draw it, write about and share it with the rest of the family or group.

Once everyone has expressed their wish, then ask “In what ways might we make this wish possible? What might be the first step to making this wish possible? What is stopping us from making this wish possible? How might we overcome the obstacles to making the wish possible?

Create a Creative Space
What does an environment that encourages your creativity look like? Feel like? Sound like? Taste like? Feel to the touch?
Pick at least one of the ways and make it happen today.

Dish Dance
When you move your feet, your brain gets revitalized. Why not take every opportunity to move your feet while doing mundane tasks? Clean up the dishes with some music on and start shakin’ shoe!

Creative Walk
People all over the Netherlands celebrate Creativity & Innovation Day by taking creativity strolls with their families and friends. Some feel its best to go in whichever direction pleases them in the moment. Others plan a route yet stretch their observation skills by opening their minds to noticing new things.

No matter what you discover, you’ll be moving your feet, opening new pathways in your brain and talking in some fresh oxygen to
help stimulate your brain.

Yes and No
Set the timer on the stove and encourage everyone to say ‘NO’ to everything suggested. Once you’ve exhausted “No”, set the timer for everyone to say “Yes” to whatever is suggested.

Discuss what it felt like to constantly hear “no” and what it felt like to constantly hear “yes”. What are the implications of always hearing one or the other? How might you create an environment where the entire household feels like everyone is saying “yes” yet everyone takes responsibility for safety and reasonable requests?

Say What?

A big part of creativity is doing new things, doing different things or doing things differently. If you and your family and friends generally use words to communicate try communicating differently.

For the entire day choose one method of communication and stick to it. Here are some examples for alternative communication:

use the lyrics from your favourite songs.
Draw pictures
Sign
Make sounds
Use facial expressions
Put all mobile phones away for the day

Help make the world a better place.
Discuss one way, big or small, you and your family could help make your place in the world better or the world a better place. Then do it!

"There was no telling what people might find out once they felt free to ask whatever questions they wanted to." Joseph Heller (1923 - 1999), Catch 22

To make the world a better place and make our place in the world better too, we need to ask new questions so we can find new answers. If you had the chance to ask the world a question what would it be? Well, you do have a chance. Click here to post your question for World Creativity and Innovation Week April 15 - 21.