There are many reasons why children should explore their creative side through activities such as arts and crafts, whether at home or at nursery, which is why most places offer artistic programmes for their students to pursue. This nursery in Wandsworth, for example, provides an expressive arts and design educational programme to support their students’ curiosity, exploration, and play. Here are some of the other benefits of arts and crafts for young children and why you should encourage yours to engage in these activities on a regular basis.
Boosts Creativity and Imagination
It might sound obvious but arts and crafts are great for nurturing your child’s creative side and letting them use them imagination on a project that does not have to follow the usual rules of the land. Art allows children to bring to live anything they want, from drawing unicorns swimming on the moon to building alien castles out of cardboard boxes, if they can think it they can create it. These skills can then be transferred to other area of their life like English and drama.
A great art and craft activity for encouraging creativity is the myFirst 3D pen make. This allows children to quickly bring to life an idea they have using specially made low-heat filament that solidifies super fast! And the best part? The material is non-adhesive, so cleaning up is a super easy too.
Enhances Confidence and Self-Esteem
One of the main benefits of arts and crafts is the increase in confidence and self esteem that it can give to a child. When they are given the opportunity to express themselves through creative mediums, they become increasingly more confident at channelling and communicating their thoughts and feelings in different ways. In other words, creativity helps children understand themselves better and being able to express themselves will increase self esteem.
What’s more, art projects often involve peer assessment and feedback which can further boost a child’s self-esteem and allows them to recognise their own accomplishments. If they are being praised for the work they are creating this will make them feel good about themselves and show them that they are capable of learning new skills and impressing not just their teachers but also their peers.
One great craft activity that can really help to further this is a rock painting set. The idea with these kits is that the children can paint these rocks and then, if they like, leave a message on the back asking people to either keep them or move them. Often people will share pictures of the decorated rocks they have found on social media pages, praising the art work and thanking he artist. These messages can then be shared with the chid to further boost their confidence. Plus, if hidden local the child will find great delight in seeing when their rocks have been moved and knowing it has brought joy to someones days.
Bookoli have some great kits to get you started, they come with everything you need including the stones, paints and design handbooks and you can pick from dinosaurs or unicorns.
Improves Fine Motor Skills
It is important for children to take part in varying activities that can strengthen their fine motor skills, because these skills are required to complete the simplest of daily activities. Arts and crafts is an example of this because it involves the use of the smaller muscles in a child’s hands, fingers and wrists. As a result, these muscles become stronger, which allows children to complete other tasks more easily, from writing to tying their shoelaces. The Paint Pop sticks are the perfect utensil for this as they are chunky and easy to hold for small hands but offer all the fun of painting whilst enhancing important skills.
Once the child is slightly older craft activities like crystal art can be used to reinforce those fine motor skills as they need to hold the thin stylus and careful transfers small crystals from the tray to a very specific spot on a picture. If you would like to help your child develop these skills through arts ad crafts then the bookoli I love crystal range are a great starting point with lots of designs to choose from.
Increases Patience
Perfecting a piece of art can take time, which requires patience and dedication. However, the finishing result is usually very rewarding and provides children with a sense of achievement. As a result, they learn that patience is key to success. While it can be tempting to rush certain things, taking it slow often leads to better results. If you can set them up somewhere quiet like at a table or at a creation station and leave them to get creative without any interruptions they will be more likely to allow themselves to become fully immersed in the activity, helping not only their patience but also their imagination and intuition.
If however you have a child that tends to rush through their art projects with no real plan and finds it hard to visualise the end result then paint by numbers are a great activity to help slow down and work towards a goal. Bookoli have a wide range of pain by numbers sets, some small, small large, covering a wide range of themes from dinosaurs to ocean wildlife, unicorns to jungle animals, so there is something for everyone.
Teaches Problem Solving Skills
Creativity underpins problem solving skills, because it often requires a child to think outside the box and come up with unique ways to achieve certain goals. Strong problem-solving skills are important throughout life and can help children feel more independent and confident in their own abilities. A good way to help with this is to set them a task such as – create a flower – and then give them a variety of materials including, plastic bottles, paint, glue, paper plates, string, anything you have handy and let them figure out how best to create a flower from what is available to them.
These are some but not all of the benefits of arts and crafts but as you can see it is an important activity that should be encouraged, especially with those under the age of 4 as arts and crafts can help them develop skills that will get them school ready. If you do not like arts and crafts due to the mess then have a look for local groups, art centres or messy play activities where you can go and get creative together without worrying about the mess in your own home.