Adding Creativity to Your Daily Routine with Devon Meves

In today's episode of the "Helping Families Be Happy" podcast, host Christopher Robbins, co-founder of Familius publishing, husband, father of nine, author, fisherman, backpacker, and aspirational musician based in the Central Valley of California, talks to Devon Meves. She is a curriculum consultant and educational content creator with master's in education and teaching and curriculum and BSR education. Throughout her career, Devon has focused on two things, education, and creativity. She is the founder of ureadyteddy. 

Episode Highlights

• 2.10: Today Christopher and Devon are going to discuss how families can include more creativity and learning in their lives.
• 03.25: Devon talks about process art. She explains it is the opposite of what we are used to thinking. Process art is the opposite of traditional art. The final product is very open-ended because of that it promotes more creativity than the traditional product art.
• 05.28: Process art promotes confidence and self-esteem related to art. 
• 06.36: We have so many books that we have explored about creativity. There is one by Mary Potter Kenyon where she has written to create, and she says that little children know how to be creative. It's just they create everything about them. They want to play, experiment, build. They said that we start to lose this as we get older. 
• 07.59: Learning together is one of the best ways to really bond with their kids. 
• 08.48: Devon explains what open ended play is.
• 09.35: Open-ended play is getting back to the basics and letting kids use their imaginations to play in whatever way they choose to play.
• 11.45: Open ended play involves a lot of problem-solving skills, critical thinking skills, and a lot of other 21st century skills like really being independent and flexible. 
• 12.36: Devon shares how through open ended play children are developing problem solving skills because they are encountering challenges.
• 13.39: If instead of doing these step-by-step intricate crafts or play setups, you take a step back, you can give children the materials and see what they do with them. See how they create art with these materials or see how they play with these materials, it's a lot easier to incorporate these things than an adult might think, says Devon.
• 16.00: One example of an open-ended play activity that Devon really like to do is taking toy cars, toy trains, things like that outside. Children normally play with them inside on a track, and we take them outside and by changing that context they really have to think more creatively. 

3 Key Points

1. Devon shares how both adult and children can benefit from process art. 
2. open-ended play is when your goal is to creativity and just imagination.
3. Devon shares some examples of how she thinks families can be better at incorporating process art and open-ended play as they work with their children. 

Tweetable Quotes

• "I think a lot of us grew up either feeling like we were good at art, or we were bad at art. And if we were good at art, we probably liked the class if we thought we were bad at art we probably felt a little frustrated or stressed out in our class, and when we take away that expectation of what the final product looks like and allow these kids to just experiment freely, there's no right or wrong answers." - Devon 
• "Adults can benefit from experimenting with materials and making discoveries alongside with their kids, which is kind of a fun, kind of fun bonding experience because they are learning something together." – Devon
• "Whatever you believe you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." - Christopher

Resources Mentioned

• Helping Families be Happy Podcast Apple
• https://www.ureadyteddy.com/about/
• Podcast Editing