Instilling creative thinking in children is incredibly important for their early educational development and helps to prepare children for a successful future. Through creative play, a child can develop physical, social, intellectual, and emotional skills as well as helping to develop and establish self-expression. Children of all ages, but especially toddlers and preschoolers, delight in expressing their ideas through sounds, colors, shapes, and role-playing activities.

At Creative Learning, as our name implies, we create a learning environment filled with creativity designed to encourage critical thinking and problem-solving to better position your children as they enter elementary school. A healthy educational environment is a foundation for children to learn appropriate problem-solving skills and understand how to dissect their situations to really take hold of their potential. 

Benefits and skills your preschooler will gain through creativity at school

1. Physical benefits – utilizing pencils, paintbrushes, crayons, kid-safe scissors, and pasting all help to develop fine motor skills, which helps them to be writing-ready as they start to learn how to read and write. While we may think of using these tools as second nature, it is not a skill that we are born with, and it takes a lot of practice to master. In a very short period of time, your child goes for not even knowing they have hands, to holding a crayon, to moving it across a paper with enough pressure to leave a colored mark. Imagine trying to write with a crayon between your toes – the strength, coordination, and ambition to make it work are incredible. This is similar to the growth and progress that your little one goes through
2. Intellectual benefits – problem-solving, critical thinking, and even basic math skills such as geometry, measuring, and sorting all occur during creative play. Children are taking the thoughts in their heads and applying to the physical world by trying to figure out if the glue will hold, if they cut something a certain size will it fit, or how can I stop the glue from dripping from my piece of paper? Developing solutions to these problems requires toddlers and preschoolers to use critical thinking skills.
3. Communication skills – Creativity not only breeds expressive communication, it also helps build social communication skills for your toddler/preschooler. Often times you find a little child talking things out, or talking to themselves about what they are doing while they are working with materials, or painting, or building something. Even if they are just talking to themselves, they are building their vocabulary and developing their imagination. This is a great, fun way for kids to develop and hone their communication skills.
4. Emotional and social benefits – Kids of all ages use creativity as an outlet to express their emotions. It is safe, accessible, fun, and it usually starts at a very young age. As your child grows older, arts and crafts can provide a safe way for them to socialize with other children, building relationships and learning how to work together with others.

Providing a creative outlet for your child to get their hands dirty and make something beautiful is so very important. Keeping a box full of crayons, buttons, glue, paper, and other crafts is a great way to keep your kids engaged and exploring their creativity and the world around them.

These creative activities are more than just busy-work, or something to make your kids happy – they are an important part of your child’s mental, physical, and social development and will help them be more prepared as they move forward into elementary school.