Anthony Recenello shows us how to cultivate a passionate, creative, amazing child through weekly creativity projects.

I decided that I’d let the children create and record their own song within thirty minutes. Because of the short amount of time, I kept their artistic responsibilities limited to storyline, lyrics, emotional vibe, and performance of the song, while I directed and came up with a melody for it all.

Here are the tools I used to bring this to life:

• MacBook Pro
• Garageband (installed in the Apple iLife bundle)
• Computer speakers
• Microphone (You can purchase a good USB microphone for no more than $100. Just plug and play.)
• Ukulele (I bought mine at a music store for twenty bucks.)
• Egg shaker
• White poster board
• Sharpie marker

I started by telling the children that in order to make a song, we first need a story. The story can be about anything they want. The trick to getting children to open up their mind is by asking them a series of open-ended questions. The important part is not what their answer is, but how you respond to the answer. They want to know they can feel comfortable being creative in front of you, so be accepting of any idea they throw your way.

“What should this story be about?”
“An alien!”
“Great!”

They could have shouted out anything, and I would have accepted it. I have a high tolerance for creativity, as long as it is genuine and coming from
their own mind, not somebody else’s. The only time I will reject an answer is if I find the same answer is being given too many times.

“What should the alien’s name be?”
“Mr. Alien!”

Children have a talent for going with the obvious. This, contrary to what adults may think, is better than trying to give interesting and unique answers. There is beauty in the obvious, because there lies your natural instinct to create. Trying to be interesting only makes you less interesting, because trying in itself is counterproductive in creating art. Don’t try, just do. I find kids to be great at this.

“And what happens to Mr. Alien when he wakes up in the morning?”
“He wears his pajamas!”
“What does he do in his pajamas?”
“He has a party with his friends!”
“Then what does he do?”
“He eats breakfast!”
“Then what?”
“He brushes his teeth!”

This is enough for a simple storyline. An alien wakes up and goes through his morning routine. I use the Sharpie and poster board to write everything down. But now we have to turn this story into lyrics. Once again, the kids do this for me.

“Okay, now we need to rhyme our story to make it into a song. What rhymes with pajamas?”
“Pajamarama!”
“Haha! Great. Okay, what rhymes with breakfast?”

There’s a pause in the room.

“Nextist!”

That’s enough for me. Art doesn’t always have to make sense; how do you think Picasso made it big?

“Now what can we rhyme with ‘brushing teeth’?”
“Underneath?”
“Yes! Now that we have the story about the alien, what do we call the song?”
“Alien story!”

I write that down. This is when the real fun starts. I get out my ukulele and ask the kids what the song should sound like. At first they don’t get what that means. But after I make it a little more specific, they get the idea. I ask them if it should be a happy song, or a sad song.

“Happy.”
“Should it be fast or slow?”
“Fast!”

Then I start strumming some chords and recording the rhythm ukulele track, made a vocal track for myself, then sang out the lyrics into the microphone:

“Mr. Alien wears his pajamas at The Pajamarama, then nextist he eats breakfast! Then he brushes all his teeth and he makes sure to get underneath all those teeth! Yeah, yeah! Alien party! Alien party! Alien party! Alien party!”

This is when I bring up five kids to sing the “Alien party!” chorus into the microphone, and they do it perfectly on the first take. After that, I bring up three other kids for percussion. One kid does the claps, another uses blocks to make a drum sound, and another uses the egg shaker. And it gets more interesting! I bring up another two kids for alien sound effects. I tell one boy to make laser gun sounds into the mic, while the other makes a spaceship sound. They do it perfectly.

Being creative is about having fun. If I concentrated too much on getting this song nominated for a Grammy, it would take the fun out of the process and the creativity of the kids and pizzazz of the music would suffer. I could feel the energy in the room as the kids were singing the song that they had made into the microphone. It was as if everyone in the room was part of the band, and we were at a recording session putting music together. This project goes beyond just having fun, because the fun your kids will have goes beyond just being a spectator to entertainment, but actively creating the excitement on their own.

Want to hear the song I recorded with the kids? Click this link below.

Alien Story

You don’t have to do exactly what I did in order to get creative with your kids. As long as your child is using his/her brain to make something new, that’s being creative!

Now that you have a base of how to get creative, what are ways you think you can spark the creative side of your own children?

Click here for the “Freestyle Beats” Zip file!

This month, you get to show off your family’s totally mad chill freestyle skills in your swagger wagon.  Can you be any more awesome than to teach your kids how to rap on beats?

The benefits of freestyling are endless. It not only helps skyrocket you and your child’s conversational skills with speaking on the spot, but also his creativity with having to come up with new content every second. Your brain is constantly working, flowing on all cylinders, where it should be. When your mind is not active like this, I call it vegetable mode. It happens when your child is used to watching TV for hours on end, or playing video games after school each day.

Instead of getting your child to be consuming information, get him to be creating. This keeps a healthy, positive, proactive mind. A person that finds it hard to be “in his head” because he is too busy making things happen rather than waiting for something to happen to him.

So first things first, lets get the materials.

Here’s what you need:

• Car stereo w/ CD player OR Audio input
• Instrumental rap beats (I’ll supply these for you.)
• Computer
• CD burner
• iTunes (http://www.apple.com/itunes)

Make a “Freestyle” playlist in iTunes with the songs supplied in your Zip file, so you can easily locate them. Either burn the playlist to a CD or put it on your iPod (if your car can connect to one).

Start a cypher during car rides by popping in the beat CD into your car stereo and rapping with your kids on the way to Shoprite.  A great game to play while freestyling is called “The Word Game.”  Each rapper gets a turn at rhyming a set of words for twenty to thirty seconds each. After he starts getting tired, move on to the next kid, and so on.

Mommy: “Car.”

Aaron: “Well I’m ridin’ in the car, and I go real far.  I shine really bright, I’m a superstar!  I am a good boy, and I love my mom.  I hear the baby crying on the intercom!”

Daddy: “Running.”

Charlie: “I love jumping and running, and I think it’s really funny.  I hop around a lot just like a little bunny!”

When just starting out, make sure the “cypher” begins with you so your children can get an idea of what it’s all about.  As time goes on, forget the rules and just start freestyling with each other.  You’d be surprised at how talented kids can get at this game, all they need is practice and after a few weeks they’ll be spittin’ rhymes like pros.

Remember, the goal is not to sound like Jay-Z while practicing.  I expect you to rap crappy at first! But the whole point is to harness you and your kids creativity in a fun way.  Your rhymes can be silly, and start off super simple, just make sure you are having fun.

Plus, you can sleep well knowing that you are the coolest parents in the universe.  Anytime parents do something creative with their children, coolness happens.  Rock on.

Oh by the way, if you record a video of you and your kids freestyling to one of the beats I’ve provided, send it to me and I’ll post it up on the website! Just put it on Youtube and give me the link. Go Diego! Go!

A little over a year ago (when we were still called “Charismatic Kids”), I started making short videos for kids on creativity. Here is one pulled up from the vault. This video is made to be watched by kids, and is a lil’ bit silly.

I was testing out the idea but never really went anywhere with it. Eventually, I may rerecord something like this, but make it look 100x better.

The point of the video is to teach your kids to use their minds in a way different than how they normally do. To take a story, and to present it from their own perspective. This is great for conversation because interacting with another person is all about learning to use your OWN perspective, instead of reiterating what others say and do.

In the Comments!
Do this with your own kid, and tell me what story you used, and how it went!

Gemma’s Painting at 2 1/2 years old

Children’s greatest gift…

…is the freedom to create without being bound by previous lessons, facts, information, and self-imposed rules. They are aware and free to interpret their reality as they see fit. They choose not to color inside the lines. They choose to draw chipmunks with blue dots and dinosaurs with big bellies. They have the freedom to create exactly what is in their mind without a predisposed vision of how someone else has already created it. This is their greatest power.

Do your best to let them take advantage of it, because it’s the only time they’ll be able to think and observe this clearly without having a world of “mind stuff” to clutter