Hi Everyone,
Here is my fifth post for #MyFriendAlexa. In the previous post I talked about 7 Main Domains of Early Childhood Education, to add on to that today I will be sharing with you another domain which might not be included in there but is considered as the most crucial and most vital development when it comes to children’s holistic growth.
Creative Development which also include Aesthetic development. Creative development refers to the development of child’s abilities in terms of creative skills and aptitudes using development appropriate practices; it involves children setting off their own learning, making choices and decisions by themselves. Aesthetic development in children is the artistic processes that a child experiences or goes through as he/she grows. Artistic processes that a child goes through are drawing or painting, creating structures, pretend play and using props during games. Aesthetic development is considered as an important factor in human development.
8 WAYS TO DEVELOP CHILD’S CREATIVITY
A child’s creativity starts with their method of thinking and problem solving. Daily challenges to expand their reasoning and understanding of the world, along with an encouraging environment allows for a child to become more confident of their views and opinions. There are several ways to develop child’s creativity, most of which can be incorporated into daily life.
- Allow your child to make simple choices, such as what to eat for dinner or where to go on a weekend. This encourages them to think independently, exercising an important aspect of creativity.
- Encourage independence from caregivers and media. A child that is constantly entertained by others or the television will struggle to find things to do on their own without access to media.
- Provide items in your child’s environment to stimulate their imagination. Drawing supplies, blocks, books, and random craft supplies can all contribute to elaborate dramatic play schemes.
- Brainstorm different uses for items with your child. For example, a cardboard tube can be a telescope, tower, or person. Validate all your child’s ideas, praising him or her for such an impressive imagination.
- Ask your child open ended questions to stretch their understanding and help them to postulate ideas. Ask your child “what if” questions. “What if people could fly?” “What if people lived in space?” “What if dolphins walked in land?” Involve your child in figuring out ways to make an improvement upon something. “How can we clean up the living room faster?” “How could we water the flowers without spilling any?” “What could we do to make the ball bounce higher?” Reading a book is an excellent activity for your child to exercise their creativity. Ask your child what could happen next, or how a character feels and why?
- Play with your child. Work together to establish dramatic play scenarios, using substitute items for props when needed. Pretend play allows children to imagine life from a different perspective, an important building block of creativity.
- Be prepared for “messy play”. While it may seem that your child is playing in the mud simply to make more work for you, in fact there is a great deal that is learned by playing with such things. When they are finished playing, make it a rule that they must help clean up. If faced with the choice of getting messy then cleaning it up and not getting messy at all, almost all children will choose the former option.
- Engage in storytelling. Start a story and take turns building upon it. Follow your child’s lead in what the mood of the story should be. Expect most stories to be more on the silly, impossible side. Since this is just a story, no idea is too farfetched.
CREATIVE PLAY
One of the most important types of creative activity for young children is creative play. Creative play is expressed when children use familiar materials in a new or unusual way, and when children engage in role-playing and imaginative play. Nothing reinforces the creative spirit and nourishes a child’s soul more than providing large blocks of time to engage in spontaneous, self-directed play throughout the day. Play is the serious business of young children and the opportunity to play freely is vital for their healthy development.
Even as early as infancy, play fosters physical development by promoting the development of sensory exploration and motor skills. Through play and the repetition of basic physical skills, children perfect their abilities and become competent at increasingly difficult physical tasks. Play fosters mental development and new ways of thinking and problem solving. Through block play, children are confronted with many mental challenges having to do with measurement, equality, balance, shape, spatial relationships and physical properties.
One of the strongest benefits of play is the way it enhances social development. Playful social interactions begin from the moment of birth. Dramatic play helps children experiment with and understand social roles. It can also give them countless opportunities for acquiring social skills as they play with others. Through dramatic play, children gradually learn to take each other’s need into account, and appreciate different values and perspective.
Through play, children can express and cope with their feelings. Play also helps relieve stress and pressure for children. They can just be themselves. There is no need to line up to adult standards during play. Play offers children an opportunity to achieve mastery of their environment. They control the experience through their imaginations, and they exercise their powers of choice and decision making as the play progresses.
Play helps develop each child’s unique perspective and individual style of creative expression. Play expresses the child’s personal, unique responses to the environment. It is a self-expressive activity that draws on the child’s powers of imagination. Play is open-ended, free-form and children have the freedom to try out new ideas as well as build on and experiment with the old.
Play provides an excellent opportunity for integrating and including children with disabilities in your program. The opportunities play provides for control and independence are important issues for any child but are especially important for these youngsters.
Therefore, as a caregiver, we must be careful to avoid dominating the play ourselves. Play should be the result of the children’s ideas and not directed by the adult.
Pay attention to play, plan for it, encourage it!
You can read my previous posts here
How to choose right preschool for your child?
Importance of Early Childhood Education
What is Early Childhood Education?
I am taking my blog to another level with Blogchatter’s #MyFriendAlexa.
Pics courtesy : Pexel / Canva
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