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 reasons why arts and crafts are beneficial for young children.
Enhances Confidence & Self-Esteem
When children are given the opportunity to express themselves through creative mediums, they become increasingly more confident at channelling and communicating their thoughts and feelings. In other words, creativity helps children understand themselves better. 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.
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.
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.
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. 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.