It's a biological fact that children have an innate curiosity. They explore, observe and imitate so they can figure out how things work and how to handle themselves and navigate their environments. This unrestricted exploration helps children form brain connections to help them learn—and it's also fun!
Art is a natural activity that supports the natural play of children. This free play allows them to explore, experiment, and learn. Fun and educational, art can help youth practice essential skills needed for life and learning.
So, here are a few benefits to incorporating arts and crafts at home.
Art activities can help your child's fine motor skills, a vital physical skill. Children regularly use the different muscles in their fingers, hands, and wrists during arts and crafts. The regular use of their muscles improves their strength and finesse, which makes it far easier for other tasks, such as writing!
Arts + Crafts = Creativity
If you want your child to think outside the box, arts and crafts can challenge them creatively and nudge them to try new things. Creativity is just one way for your child to show expression. Creativity can help your child solve problems they might run into or challenge them to try something they may have never thought they'd be able to do. Resilience is another excellent quality that comes from being creative. Building resilience can help your child bounce back from challenges or setbacks and keep trying even when it seems impossible.
Art Aids Cognitive Development
Art can help your child develop skills like patterning and cause and effect. For example, if your child recognizes that if they push a crayon very hard, the color from the crayon will become visibly darker. Children, through art, can also practice critical thinking skills by making a mental plan or picture of what they intend to create and execute their plan.
Art Can Help Your Child's Math Skills
Children can develop the ability to understand concepts like size and shape, making comparisons, counting, and spatial reasoning from an early age.
Art Can Help Build Your Child's Language Skills
As you listen to your child describe their artwork and techniques, you can encourage them to expand their language skills by asking open-ended questions. As you do this, your child might also learn new vocabulary words such as texture, aesthetic, abstract, absorbing, angular, geometric, distorted, curved, and more.
Lastly, artistic expression can help nurture creativity and relieve stress. Free expression helps your child develop essential skills, such as problem-solving and decision making, while also aiding in their mental health and well-being. Encouraging creative endeavors can also be great for a child's education.
So, here are 3 tips for introducing more art to your child(ren).
Start introducing your child to artists.
Take your child to an art gallery or museum, and introduce them to a few artists. If your child seems to express a particular connection to a style of artwork or colors of a specific artist, encourage their interest and help them learn more about that artist. Use books and crafts based on famous artists' paintings, drawings, or sculptures to discuss the lives of the artists and their unique role in history.
Give Your Child the Ability to Create at any time and Give Them Art Choices.
It's important to encourage your children's artistic inclinations. Encourage art by giving your child the ability to create at any time by making the resources to create available at all times.
Provide opportunities for your child to experience art by keeping art supplies on hand and providing time for artistic expression. You can mix it up by bringing in unexpected materials like reusable objects in your home, which also teaches the importance of recycling. You can also make items like paint, colored pencils, chalk, play dough, markers, crayons, oil pastels, and scissors available in a designated art space.
Create Art with Your Child
Sit down with your child and draw together. Children who draw independently sometimes feel pressure to make their drawings look realistic or "good". Seeing you draw can help them relax and be more creative. Also, when you create with your child, imitate what they do rather than create something of your own. If your child makes big scribbles or small lines with circles, imitate their artwork. This approach will help boost their confidence in their artwork.
You can also encourage your child to draw their versions of objects they see around them or use cut-up bits of paper to create their mosaics.
It doesn't take much to help nudge your child into creating and learning through art—all they need is a few tools, a little encouragement, and an open mind.
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