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Creative Materials And Activities For The Early Childhood Curriculum – The preschool years can be a creative time. Creative activities such as drama, music, dance, art and craft are great for learning and developing during these years. They can help students:
Preschoolers love to be spontaneous, so it’s a good idea to follow your child’s lead with creative activities. The key is for your child to explore their creativity and express themselves, so see what your child likes to do before you suggest anything.
Creative Materials And Activities For The Early Childhood Curriculum
Sometimes your child may need extra help or encouragement. Or your child may want you to join in on the fun! By participating in activities, you can develop your child’s skills and understanding. Being creative and playful with your kids is also good for your relationship.
Creative Play & Activities: Preschoolers
When you are doing creative work with your child, it is good to show your child how there is more than one way to do something. For example, you can ask questions like ‘How many ways can you draw a person?’ or ‘Show me how many times you can do it with a drum’. This encourages your child to enjoy being creative rather than trying to do something ‘right’ or doing something perfect.
You can also ask your child questions about their thinking and problem solving methods. For example, ‘Tell me what’s going on in your picture’ or ‘How did you put the feather on the cardboard?’
Whatever creative ideas your child comes up with, give your child lots of praise. For example, ‘I like the picture you drew. You really know how to mix colors together’. This boosts your child’s confidence and encourages them to keep exploring their creativity.
Your child will begin to make basic shapes and may enjoy experimenting with text, space and colors. For example, school children often draw houses with sunlight above the roof. This is because this type of image is made of basic shapes like squares, triangles and circles.
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Create a home art gallery for your child’s art. A kitchen wall or board is great for hanging pictures and paintings. You can ask your child to choose one unique drawing each week to display in the center of the gallery. This shows that you value the things your child has done.
Preschoolers often use songs and stories as a source of surprises. One moment they are chickens eating chickens, the next they are Mook Mook owls!
Preschoolers are often involved in the stories as a whole as well. For example, when you read a story to your child, you may notice them moving their arms, legs or face and imitating what is happening in the story.
Drama and storytelling also give your child the opportunity to build and practice vocabulary and learn about story structures. And when your child acts like a nurse, they see the world from someone else’s point of view. This helps them develop empathy.
Here’s How You Can Encourage Creative Thinking In Children
It’s good to incorporate some ‘fun art’ into your child’s life. Why not visit a local art exhibit or see a multicultural or Aboriginal dance or performance and talk about your favorite things?
Preschool children usually enjoy singing. They like songs with repetition and melody. They can compose their own words to well-known songs, and words often come from experiences and people around them.
Your child can identify favorite songs by name and sing parts of them. Singing helps children understand the differences between fast and slow, long and short, high and low, and loud and soft.
Your child can do actions and dance moves to go along with the music. Sometimes you can find them flying like butterflies, crawling like magpies or jumping like frogs.
Toddler Learning Activities You Can Do At Home
Movement with music is also good for releasing energy and emotions. For example, your child may jump for joy or stamp in anger.
Variety in play is good for children. It helps children learn about people from different backgrounds, avoid stereotypes and understand equality. For example, you can encourage children of all genders to dress up as nurses or construction workers. Or choose stories or songs from different cultures or languages. Stuck in arts and crafts with your toddler? Add some fun back to craft time with these creative craft ideas for preschoolers!
Painting your own is surprisingly easy and may just be the fun your little one needs to re-enjoy the art table! We love this simple recipe for homemade paint with flour.
Once your preschooler has finished drawing or painting, add fun by asking them if they want to turn it into a puzzle! Let them draw a line all over the picture and use the safety scissors to cut it into pieces. Then, they can put it together and work to solve a new puzzle!
Vygotsky On Collective Creativity
This creative painting idea doubles as a way to make the most of the rainy season! Let the child drop food coloring onto a large piece of thick paper placed on a baking sheet. Take it outside when it’s raining (a light or sprinkler works best) and let the rain mix the colors together! The results will be unique.
Your backyard can have creative opportunities! Let the child use garden tools and stones to make their own “zen garden” in the sandbox. Collect flowers (and yes, count weeds!) to stick to the canvas. Find and paint pinecones. Or if you’re up for a little mess, let the child create a mixture of mud to “paint” with (outside!)
Let your kids explore a new art form: photography! There are many affordable cameras designed just for kids (or you can let them use your phone if you’re feeling brave). If they need some inspiration, make a list of things that will picture a hunting style.
Whether it’s something fun like Starry Night, or something fun like Andy Warhol’s Soup Cans, most kids will love the chance to recreate something from a “real” artist. Show them a few pieces, let them choose, and provide the colors and materials they’ll need to give it their best shot! (If you’re a perfectionist, remind them that it’s just for fun, and it doesn’t need to look exactly like the original to be successful!)
How To Teach Learning Through Play
Instead of copying artwork, your child can create something in response to a book, poem, or visual art. They might think of the houses of their favorite people in a book or draw a picture that reminds them of a poem. There are no rules!
You can use anything from construction paper to extra buttons and coins, to big sequins, Just give your student a glue stick (or help them with a heat gun if needed) and let them work!
If your reader always seems to find random things on the floor, this activity gives them an excuse to collect their stuff! Let your kids start the “found things” box, and when they find enough, they can use the pieces to create a sculpture or glue on a picture. For example, they can stick on a button to create a collection of balloons, decorate a bird with the feathers they found, or just combine their parts in fun, drawings.
If your child loved (or still loves!) play dough as a girl, they will definitely love the “big boy” challenge of making clay models. If they need some inspiration, we love these original clay design ideas.
Simple Obstacle Course Ideas For Preschoolers
For this project, you will need dish soap, paint, and different colored cellophane. You or your child can cut the cellophane into any shape you want to create your glass art. You can go for a mosaic of random shapes, or something more complex. Then, let them paint the details of the dish on the window and stick cellophane to it. It should stick well but come with a peeler when you’re ready to clean!
Fill some used water bottles with water and food coloring in primary colors (red, yellow, blue). Then, use the funnel to let them mix the colors into the other water bottles, replace the cap, and shake them. It’s a great way to teach them about color mixing, and they’ll love learning the different combinations they can use to create their favorite colors! I’m glad to be here! I hope you find this blog interesting, helpful, and fun! Please stop by, and be sure to sign up for emails, and follow our blogs for new play-based learning activities.
Looking for some fun, meaningful, hands-on, easy-to-set activities for 2-3 year olds? This post is a great place to start! I gave the title to 2-3 year olds but you know your kids best and what they are/are not ready for. All activities must be done with adult supervision!
In this post you will find activities to help young children learn shapes, number recognition, counting, letters, fine motor skills, gross motor skills, pre-writing, creativity, pretend play, social skills, problem solving, and more. The materials needed to prepare and complete each activity include how to set them up, what the children will do, and
