Creative experiences for Children

Creative Experiences for Children 2(1+1)

Lesson 9 : Planning Creative Activities for Children

Role of teacher in promoting and organizing the creative activities

1. Teachers should be certain that the material they use to encourage creativity in classroom matches the developmental level of the children. Try to provide the materials appropriate for their developmental level.
2. At early stages, while encouraging children to be innovative, teachers must use content suitable to their mental ability. Give simple and straight forward subject so that children get initiation in their early work.
3. Teachers must give children experience in deriving as many and different responses to a problem as possible. Foster divergent thinking.
4. Teachers must encourage their pupils to search for relationships.
5. The most important aspect of creativity is the ability to tolerate ambiguity. Tell children to start their creative work with few vague ideas later focus them to the desired level by trying many ways.
6. Fear of failure or fear of unknown makes people almost desperately withheld some answer, and think if it is suitable or not. This tendency may hinder creative answer. Encourage children to answer the question without any fear.
7. Teachers should directly teach pupils that it is better to pause, muse, think of alternatives and search for the better answer for any problem.
8. Teachers should always remind students that true creativity rests squarely upon knowledge of subject, hard work and patience.
9. Teachers must strive toward becoming more creative themselves and sometimes present themselves as model for children.
10. They should not introduce too many different art media for young children at a time. Allow children to gain mastery of one or two art forms at initial stage.
11. Children need repeated opportunities to use the same materials over and over so 'they can become familiar with the properties of each medium and how it can be used to create an art object. Children require sometime to explore the given medium and later they use it in a creative manner. Limiting the art materials to easel painting and clay, at least at the beginning of the school year, may have some merit.)
    
    
    
    


12. Some children seek other ways to express their creativity. They prefer to build with blocks, manipulate puzzles and small objects, or move to music or in other, more physical ways. Teachers need to accept that doing art projects is not the only way to be creative and plan other activities that will draw their interest.
13. The focus of art for young children must be on the process. How chil­dren use the materials, how they express their own feelings and abilities, how they make something that is uniquely theirs are all at the center of the "artis­tic endeavor" for preschool children.
14. Teachers who can be encouraging and flexible and supply materials without interfering can help chil­dren achieve fluency and originality in ways that they find personally mean­ingful. Whether pasting scraps to a collage, dancing to slow music, or build­ing a bridge from blocks, children are expressing who they are. Teachers, preferably can preserve art objects, videotape of dancing, or photograph of the finished bridge and show them to their parents. However, the real art is in the way the child shapes the experience, not in the product.

Role of parents and community in promoting creativity