How Sensory Play and Co-Creation With Kids Can Activate an Innovation Mindset
Sensory play with my son helped me stay sane during lockdown and emerge inspired and full of ideas
Like me, my four-year-old is incredibly curious, eager to discover new things. When lockdown hit and we had to shield, because of his respiratory medical condition, I resigned myself to fulfilling his needs and putting mine on the back-burner. This was supposed to be the eve of my freedom slowly returning, after a year of colic-filled and very sleepless nights with my soon-to-turn 1-year-old. I had visions of long work-filled days, finishing my website, socialising, networking and absorbing evening lectures and workshops like a sponge once again.
Instead, I would now use this time to be the four-year-old’s full-time teacher, spiritual guide and servant. And as for the one-year-old, he would just have to sit on my lap or wander about making his own fun… I couldn’t manage activities for two. Sorry dude. I felt exhausted at the thought and like many others, resentful too. However, I was also feeling incredibly grateful about not having to juggle full-time childcare with a full-time job on top, so I ploughed on.
We indulged in cardboard games, phonics (thanks Katie’s Classroom), numeracy and various incredible creative activities that were set by his nursery as well as frequent film-filled afternoons. He was having fun. I was feeling equally proud of my effort and exhausted. It wasn’t sustainable. In order to give, I need to make sure my ‘well’ is full. I need to feel inspired and I wasn’t. I was slowly losing steam.
I considered what I needed from this time to survive. However, I soon decided that surviving wasn’t good enough. That to be in with a chance of emerging with a positive mindset, I needed to be thriving. So I started to think about how I could satisfy my own creative urges and activate my sense of wonder during lockdown too. Discovery is one of my core values and learning is what drives me in life. Making comes close second, but mainly in service to learning. I wondered if there was a way to work side-by-side with my four-year-old? Could I come up with activities that would motivate us both?
There were many people such as Lucy Tiffney and Marguerite London doing wonderful craft-along IGTVs during lockdown. Also, an artist called Nick White whose work celebrates play and collaboration, makes lovely work with his 2-year-old daughter as a form of co-creation. I took inspiration from lots of the ideas I was seeing during lockdown and started to design activities. I knew intuitively that sensory connection was key to the success of this experiment as it would keep us focused and stimulated.
Our activities included painting paper and cutting shapes from it to make textured collages; learning about and making dumplings from scratch; exploring natural colour in the garden; making naturally-scented-bath bombs; creating repeat rainbow patterned surface designs and making a paddling-pool beauty salon. The list goes on.
I started to find my mojo again and I could see the excitement in my son too. He was happy to be doing fun projects and getting positive attention from me at the same time. What I wasn’t expecting was how each of these projects opened the doors for innovation.
For example, when making dumplings, we made the dough and created the fillings and then watched some youtube videos on different styles of folding. However, when we tried these techniques with the actual dumplings it was really hard and a bit disastrous. Dough was sticking to the surface and the parcels were breaking open. I got frustrated and felt a sense of perfectionism creeping in. I had a plan for this and it wasn’t working out.
My son said, “I know, why don’t we get the playdough out and practise first.” A genius idea. We got the playdough out and as I relaxed, he mastered some great folds. I felt inspired and unlimited. We were playing for the sake of playing. At this point, my son had started using our ravioli cutter with the play dough. I wondered what would happen if you put clay through a pasta machine… Could you fuse clay linguini together to create something functional? Could you use those rolling pin pattern-makers (usually used for icing) on clay?
When we finally went back to the dumpling dough, we used some of the folds we’d copied and some we’d made up ourselves. The whole process felt fresh and energised. The enjoyment of the whole process was evident in the taste of the final product.
Another example was making repeat rainbow prints with a roller. We inked up a roller with stripes of colour and started rolling rainbows onto plain paper. We had recently done another activity where we’d used relief-printing to explore surface textures of different leaves in our garden. We were now painting in the garden, surrounded by herbs and wondered how the shapes of the leaves might be incorporated into the rainbows. We picked some thick, waxy leaves and placed them on the page to roll over, which looked pretty.
The second time though, we chose coriander leaves but as they are so thin, they stuck to the roller. I tried to pick them off but couldn’t and felt flustered. Not really caring, my son continued rolling and revealed that as a result of the leaf sticking, this negative shape actually became a really beautiful repeat print. His exclaims of “WOAH” and “That’s amazing! How does that even happen?” matched my excitement.
We started using this technique to create negative patterns and build up rainbows over coloured paper where the stuck-on leaves would reveal the colour of the paper underneath. Then we built up double layers of rainbows with crazy overlaid effects, broken up by patterned leaf-shapes. I was so inspired!
I was imagining beautiful wrapping papers, textile prints and cost-effective ways of making a one-off garment print slightly unique each time. I could envision make-up techniques and giant murals.
The more activities we did, the more I learnt what worked well and what didn’t. There is a sweet-spot for co-creation activities. Firstly, there must be a focus. There has to be a starting point and a basic structure, but to pave way for success, there must also be room for play. We had to be able to deviate from the plan in an organic way. Thirdly, trust needs to be fostered. I had to be able to let my son lead these activities down paths that he felt were interesting and appropriate too. I achieved this by sitting back at points where I wanted to interrupt. Often these moments would unlock real magic. We had to find ways of solving problems and flaunting happy accidents. We had to let one discovery lead to another. These small moments of innovation can have a cognitive effect on creativity and design thinking.
Our experiments have reinvigorated the importance I place on open-ended play within the design process in order to find new ways of thinking and working. In trying to rush the final product I could be missing a trick and also doing a disservice to my overall growth as a designer and innovator. Also, I could miss out on the most pleasurable aspect of designing which is the process, not the outcome.
I highly recommend you give playful co-creation a go at home, even if you are not a designer. If nothing else, it will help you to be present in a stretch of time that feels like forever. And if it doesn’t revolutionise your mindset, sensory activities like those I have described will open the doors to imagination and spark moments of joy that are much-needed for our well-being when we are under pressure. If there is one thing I know for sure, it’s that we all need coping mechanisms for times like Covid-19 lockdown and these experiments have been mine.
Explore more of my sensory design work and thinking here at HEKA.
