How do children learn about tools, their conventional uses in helping us solve problems, and the range of ways they can be used creatively? Previous research suggests that children understand artifacts in terms of the designers' intentions. In contrast, I argue that children learn conventional and creative uses of artifacts and that this learning is supported by parent-child interactions in everyday activities. This study takes a deeper look at the actual social settings where children are learning about how everyday objects are used. Thirty-nine parents and their 4-5 year old children participated in a cooking activity. The focus is on parent-child interactions with objects that are conventional or unconventional objects for that activity. Using this design, this study investigates what parents actually say and do in such interactions with their children. Results show that parents do verbally distinguish between objects that are conventional versus unconventional for a task. Interestingly however, what parents considered conventional was not always tied to the designed function. Further, this study revealed a relationship between parents' talk about artifact functions and children's willingness to use an artifact creatively in another task.