HOT TOPIC: The Perks of Introducing the Arts into Early Childhood

While many consider the arts as hobbies for children, they can actually be essential to a child’s early education. Art helps support free play in children, allowing them unrestricted exploration and experimentation that is both fun and educational. With the right early childhood teaching resources, arts in learning can provide the following benefits.

Mental Development

Creative activities encourage children to learn about the different shapes, colours and textures. Arts can also start their numeracy development by teaching them about basic counting and measuring in a fun way. For pre-literate children, the visual arts are a primary means through which they can explore and share their perceptions of their world.

As children describe their artworks and the process behind it, they develop their language skills. The visual arts can help children to communicate ideas that cannot be expressed verbally, which is particularly important for children with English as a second language.

Physical Development

Cutting or tearing paper, holding a brush and colouring a canvas, clay work, sculpture, collage, weaving, construction, photography and carving are all excellent ways to develop a child’s fine motor skills. Through art, children can achieve different developmental milestones in a relaxed and fun environment. Learning to draw with the proper pencil grip at an early age will also benefit them when learning to write.

Creative Development

Children learn to express their ideas and imagination through art. Arts allow children to enter imaginative worlds, to be creative and to engage in playful thinking. It encourages them to experiment with unknown materials and use new methods and techniques to achieve their desired effect. Fostering creativity in arts helps develop a capacity for unique ideas and solutions. This helps boost their self-confidence and decision-making skills in the future.

Emotional Development

Developing children’s imaginations is important for learning to show empathy for others. A wonderful aspect of the arts is that there is no one right answer. Arts offer multiple solutions to a problem or ways that an idea can be expressed. When children have opportunities to view each other creating art and talking about the ideas they are exploring, they can develop an appreciation for different perspectives and an understanding of what can be subjective.

Cultural Knowledge and Identity Formation

For children, experiencing the visual arts through their own cultures as well as other cultures within their early childhood settings can transmit powerful messages about their identity and the values they relate to. Art is an excellent way to expose children to many different cultures, helping them develop an appreciation of cultural diversity.

Early Childhood Teaching Resources from User Friendly Resources

User Friendly Resources have proudly equipped Kiwi teachers with quality early childhood teaching resources for over 25 years. All of our resources are developed by teachers, for teachers, with a distinctly student-centric approach to learning. Arts related early childhood teaching resources available through User Friendly Resources include:

• Visual Arts
• Applied Literacy
• Art Eyes
• Art Works
• Finding Your Way with Visual Arts
• Focus on Drama

Explore our full range of arts learning resources or get in touch online if you have any questions.