A few weeks ago, my kids had a snow day. Normally a welcome break, this one landed after an already-long weekend (thanks to a snow day just before the weekend started), so the cabin fever was high. After lunch, I needed a break from my computer, and my kids needed a break from basement Nerf battles (or else we were going to end up in the ER that day), so I called them upstairs for a little art project -- an exercise in perspective. The idea? To sit together in front of the same scene, and create a piece of art based on what we each saw.
We each gathered our materials -- scissors, paper, glue, and glitter for me; crayons and pencils for my younger son; and pencil and ruler for my older -- and set up shop on one side of our dining room table looking out to the street.
Here was the scene:
And here's what we each produced...
My older son focused on the light post, while my younger son focused on his brother and me, completing blind portraits (drawing our faces without looking at the paper). Predictably, I focused on the house across the street.
I don't know whether or not this exercise proves that adults lose some of the creativity inherent in children, but I do know that it shows that we all see and experience the same thing differently. An important lesson for these days, I think.