Arts – The Freedom To Explore And Create
Art is a natural activity for children that supports free play. Giving children the freedom to manipulate different materials in an organic and unstructured fashion permits exploration and experimentation, which serve as the basis for learning. Consequently, artistic endeavors and self-directed play serve as not only fun activities but also educational ones as well. Some of the skills your little ones will practice when they participate in art activities include:
- Fine motor skills – Grasping pencils, crayons, chalk, and paintbrushes helps children to develop their fine motor skills and muscles. In addition, the development of these skills will help your child with writing, drawing, and other tasks that require controlled movements.
- Cognitive development – Art can help children learn and practice skills such as working with patterns and understanding cause and effect (i.e. “the harder I press with this crayon, the darker the color will be”). They can also practice critical thinking skills by preparing a mental plan or picture of what they wish to create and then follow through with their plan.
- Math skills – Through creative art activities, your children can learn about concepts like size, shape, making comparisons, counting, and spatial reasoning.
- Language skills – As your children create, describe, and share their artwork, they develop valuable language skills that promote self-expression and effective communication skills. Parents can encourage the development of their children’s language skills by actively listening and asking open-ended questions in return. This is also a great opportunity to introduce new vocabulary and learn descriptive words that pertain to their projects.
- Decision making – According to a report by Americans for the Arts, art education strengthens problem-solving and critical thinking skills. Just the experience of actively making decisions and choices in the process of creating art can carry over into other parts of life and be applied in other contexts.
- Visual learning – Drawing, sculpting with clay, and threading beads on string all help children develop visual-spatial skills. According to Dr. Kerry Freedman (Head of Art and Design Education at Northern Illinois University), “children need to know more about the world than just what they can learn through text and numbers. Art education teaches students how to interpret, criticize, and use visual information, and how to make choices based on it.” For this reason, we must reinforce the importance of developing our children’s knowledge about the visual arts as well as graphic symbolism.
- Inventiveness – When kids are encouraged to express themselves and take risks while creating art, they develop a sense of innovation that will be vital to success in their adult lives. Having the freedom to create art will help transform your children into forward thinking and inventive people who are capable of finding new approaches to problem solving, creative expression, and making things better!
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