Leeds has ‘bags of creativity’ (and boxes too) …
During the Coronavirus pandemic, we’ve seen some brilliant partnerships develop between individuals and organisations to try and help children and young people who were forced to stay at home.
Child Friendly Leeds worked with Fall into Place, Active Leeds and Playful Anywhere to help provide mini play boxes to families across Leeds. The play boxes were filled with arts and crafts activities, as well as other items donated by local organisations and a total of 2500 were distributed.
Another larger partnership that took place across Yorkshire and the Humber, provided ‘Bags of Creativity’ to 8000 children and young people with the support of IVE and the Local Cultural Education Partnerships. The bags provided ideas, activities and the equipment needed to be creative at home and all the activities were designed by local artists. In Leeds, the bags were delivered directly to children and families via our colleagues in social care.
There were bags for three different age ranges and alongside 20 activity postcards in each, they contained the following:
For 2 – 6 year-olds, an orange bag contains vibrant chiffon scarves, a space blanket, and many other materials to encourage imaginative play.
7 – 11 year-olds received a bright green bag full of colouring pencils, pipe cleaners and sensory materials for creative expression.
12 – 16 year-olds were given a navy blue bag with contents including watercolour paints and modelling clay, to explore their creativity.
Although we don’t have any more bags to share, the activity postcards created across the eight regions have been gathered together and are freely available for everyone to use. Here is the link to all of the activity postcards.
We hope the postcards give you lots of ideas for getting creative at home – please ask your grown up to share anything you do with us, via social media. We’d love to see what you make and create!
Twitter: @Child_Leeds
Facebook: ChildFriendlyLeeds
Instagram: ChildFriendlyLeeds
