Importance of creative learning and learning through visual art and craft

Importance of creative learning and learning through visual art and craft

• Creative play through visual art and craft can help in fostering creativity and imagination in toddlers.
• With the help of these activities, young children develop their senses through exploration and discovery.
• Using creative play, toddlers can communicate their feelings.
• Young children might not always be able to say why they’re feeling angry, depressed, happy or frightened. But in an encouraging environment, they might be able to use activities and experiences to express their feelings using creative play.
• Creative play helps children try out different ideas and ways of doing things.
• Always remember that the process of doing the activity is the most important part that the final result.

Creative play ideas

Young children love activities such as:

• Finger-painting
• Pasting
• Colouring pictures
• Folding or ripping paper
• Making things out of playdough

These activities might be a bit messy, but can help your child in:

• Getting used to new textures, like wet, slimy or sticky
• Learning how to paint
• Learning different things that they can make out of papers
• Developing all kinds of fine motor skills e.g., the ability to hold pencils and use scissors
• Express their thoughts, experiences or ideas

You can also give them simple, recycled objects that can encourage your child’s creative development. These include:

• Giving your child an empty cardboard box to make a house, a robot, a truck, an animal – whatever your child wants to make. Your child may paint the box or decorate it with craft materials.
• Going on a nature walk with your child to look for natural materials to make art. For example, collect fallen leaves for drawing, pasting on the paper or dipping into paint.
• Using small plastic lids and other ‘threadable’ to make jewellery.
• Keeping a ‘busy box’ with things such as string, wrapping paper scraps, stickers and straws that can be used by your child to make whatever they want.