Take a Tour of Our Continuum
Our Early Learning and Development Continuum includes nine domains with goals for ages birth to five. Each month these concepts are embedded in new themes and daily lesson plans. Join us as we explore the domains and show you how FunShine curricula will build skills and make learning fun!
Benefits of Creative Arts in Early Childhood
The joy and excitement children find in art can be infectious! Art is not only fun for children of all ages, it’s also important for children’s development. Art allows children to engage their senses in open-ended play and supports the development of cognitive skills and social-emotional skills. As children get older, art continues to provide opportunities for brain development, creativity, and self-expression.
Creative art does not only involve painting and drawing but also music, movement, and dramatic play. In the first three years of life, children are forming the brain connections that lay the foundation for the language, motor, and cognitive skills they will use for years to come. Musical experiences are an important way to help young children create these pathways, also called neural connections.
Dramatic or pretend play supports social-emotional, language, and cognitive development by providing opportunities for children to practice important skills with peers. When children engage in dramatic play as a group, it requires them to cooperate and negotiate roles. This gives children the opportunity to share ideas, solve problems together, and build conflict-resolution skills.
Art benefits children’s development in a variety of other ways, such as:
Fine Motor Skills
When children are creating art, there are many motions involved, such as holding a paintbrush, drawing with crayons, or cutting with scissors. These develop fine motor muscles, which help build the foundation for writing, buttoning a coat, and other complex fine motor tasks.
Language and Literacy Skills
Talking to children about what they created provides children with the opportunity to learn words for colors, shapes, and much more. This helps them use descriptive words to share what they created and express what they might be feeling.
Critical Thinking Skills
While working through the process of creating art, children must plan out what they want to create and consider the limitations of the materials available to them. The experience of making decisions lays the foundation for critical thinking skills.
Math Skills
Math provides children with hands-on experience to practice concepts such as fractions, scale, and ratios. Often, the first math concepts children learn are linked to mastering shapes and spaces. These are basic concepts linked to foundational geometry.
Incorporating Creative Art Activities
FunShine Express curricula make it easy to get started with creative arts in your setting. We include ideas, instructions, and the corresponding materials for children to make and create! Each kit has creative art projects that are theme-related and seasonal. Buttercups for ages 0-3 includes 12 projects in each two-month kit, and Fireflies for ages 3-5 includes 15 projects in each monthly kit. These projects are open-ended and incorporate a variety of art mediums and techniques. While independent crafts are an accessible and common form of art, there are so many other ways to include creative arts in your day:
Circle Time
This collaborative art activity only requires paint supplies and a large sheet of paper. Facilitate a conversation during circle time about the art supplies that are available and explain to the children that they will work together to create a piece of art. Allow the children to have autonomy over their art and give them time to explore and be creative with their peers. A group art activity is a great way for preschoolers to work together and build their social skills.
Language and Literacy
A great starting point for introducing art into your classroom is to choose a favorite book or character and do crafts based on them. This craft from I Am Enough is a great example! If you can’t find a craft-based activity for a favorite book, improvise by transforming generic crafts and adding elements of children’s favorite books or characters.
Math
This shape-painting activity is a great way to work on shape and color recognition. You can also extend the activity by doing a shape hunt. Shapes are an important part of mathematics and looking for the shapes in the classroom environment is a great way to help children identify shapes.
Outdoor Play
Taking music and movement activities outside is a great way to engage children with nature. Try this summer parade activity, where children can play instruments and move their bodies freely.
Dramatic Play
Both structured and unstructured dramatic play offers opportunities for teachable moments and conflict resolution. This travel agency dramatic play activity provides children with opportunities to collaborate and work together by assuming various roles.
This concludes our journey on the Early Learning and Development Continuum. We hope you enjoyed the tour, learned new tips and activities for incorporating skills from each domain into everyday learning and play, and discovered how FunShine programs make this easy with everything at your fingertips! Click below for quick access to each of our continuum blog posts:
Note: We did not provide separate posts on the domains: Approaches to Learning and Dual Language Learners. These concepts are embedded throughout lesson plans and often coupled with other activities as secondary outcomes.
Back to blog listing