What is Creativity?

Young children’s learning and development are creative by nature. Integrating creativity into the curriculum enables educators to develop students’ critical thinking, problem solving skills and self expression for their life time learning. Creativity is a function that goes beyond to invent arts and crafts to inventive play, character’s, musical, and even to problem solving in science and mathematics (Isbell & Akiko Yoshizawa, 2020). When children have an opportunity to explore their artistic ability, it helps them to become more confident as well as giving them a deeper knowledge of the world around.
This research puts creativity as a focus in early childhood education as it could have a profound effect on children’s cognitive, social, and emotional development. As Howard and Mayesky (2022) state, learning through creative activities allows children to test, take risks, and explore new ideas, all of which are necessary for the intellectual development of a child. Learning with creativity allows the children to think independently, be resilient, and meaningfully participate in their learning experiences.

So being creative is incorporated in the curriculum where children can make choices, express their emotions, develop knowledge with the help of hands on experience. Children’s creative activities offer chances for them to acquire necessary abilities including discussions, cooperation, and solving difficulties (Isbell & Akiko –Yoshizawa, 2020), no matter whether they utilize painting, build with squares, generate drama play or narrative. In addition, participation in creative experience offers children opportunity to learn how to take challenges, to become more patient and to keep trying in order to perfect their ideas.

Strategies for Integrating Creativity into the Curriculum

An educator, therefore, has a significant part in fostering creativity by creating an environment that allows for exploration and expression. Among the some effective strategies for the integration of creativity into the curriculum:

Play Materials: Open-Toy toys, clay, fabric, and recycled objects are provided which allow children to explore and create their own creations. Play that is open ended, encourages divergent thinking, innovation (Howard & Maykesy, 2022). Teachers create a dispensing ground for children to express their imagination, it will help in development of problem solving and flexible thinking among children.

Storytelling and Dramatic Play: It helps in developing language skills, emotional intelligence, and imagination of the children and also encourages them to create their stories and engage in role playing activities. For instance, puppetry is a particularly good pedagogical tool that can facilitate language development and social interaction (Anders, 2021). Storytelling also develops children’s narrative skills and gives them an understanding of various perspectives.

Musical and movement: Including musical and dance exercises in daily activities can assist in the child’s ability to develop coordination, self-expression and rhythm. By singing, playing instruments and movement based activities, brain development is stimulated and learning becomes a love (Isbell & Akiko-Yoshizawa, 2020). These are multisensory activities that make learning more dynamic and enjoyable as they make children to interact with the curriculam.

Hands-On Science and Math Exploration: Where children use the logic, creativity when solving problems and hands on experiments. Educating children to nurture curiosity and critical thinking in them allows children to explore natural phenomena in quest of inquiry learning (Howard and Mayesky, 2022). Measuring, sorting, predicting or outcomes are activities that help develop analytical thinking and mathematical understanding.