Offering open-ended experiences

Sara Noor, Early Education Manager, looks at the importance of activities that support creative thinking.

Art has been the focus for some of our nursery children as they have explored painting and used different media to make various images on paper. It would be easy to extend this interest at home but all too often, the activity tends to focus on the end product. What would happen if we provided creative activities that allowed our children to really experience the process of creating art?

The aim of offering open-ended experiences with variousmedia and materials is to focus on the process of creation rather than thefinished product. By introducing art media through open-ended experiences, thechildren can fully explore and understand a medium - how it behaves, how it canbe used, how it can be manipulated and how it can create marks.

The children can experience paint with their handsand talk about how it feels, they can test to see how the paint moves on roughand smooth paper, or they can observe the marks made by a thick or thin brush. Thechild not only becomes fluent in different media but is also using art as atool for thinking.

By reconsidering the activities that we offer, we are giving our children the time and space to be creative, to explore and experiment. We are enabling them to become more fluent in the language of art and providing the foundation for creative thinking.

Find out about simple activities that support your child's creativity in our Kids' Corner.