By Kitti Pecka, Head Teacher
Children are naturally creative. However, in order to flourish, creativity must be nourished. Creative thinking is a constant in the mind of the child (and in the childlike mind), however for the very young child environmental obstacles and physical limitations are also constant. How do we remove obstacles for the eager artist?
At Bing, we help children create their own learning paths. Our classrooms become laboratories for exploration and environments that encourage creative thinking.
In our class of 2-year-olds, we set the stage for learning by creating opportunities for free exploration. One way we do this is by considering the senses. We are sensitive to children’s visual, tactile and auditory input and work at offering specific stimulation that encourages experiences rich in different sensory input. The ease of access and simplicity of available classroom materials eliminate obstacles and offer an invitation to play for a very young child. Teachers observe and are available to facilitate, use welcoming language and gestures and make the materials accessible.
Small children respond very positively to the opportunity to interact with the environment rather than merely to observe. Our classroom reflects this by making every material immediately available. The play-based programs at Bing strongly foster children’s active discovery as they use the many open-ended materials in the classroom under the thoughtful guidance of skilled teachers. We find that the youngest children flourish by using open-ended art materials in a comfortable setting.
The experience of one of our youngest children, Tommy, shows how this approach can succeed. He was immediately drawn to the art table and spent long periods of time for all projects. He painted, fingerpainted, drew, glued two- and three-dimensional objects, all the while thoughtfully focusing on the piece at hand. He repeated the encouraging or descriptive words of the teacher, such as the color of the paint. He was aware and respectful of those around him but remained focused on his own work. His active participation in art was building his comfort level and confidence. It also produced a huge portfolio of art that progressed from the simplest of products to complex creations, each building on the one that came before. Teachers observed and commented about the properties of each one and tracked progress in order to provide materials and projects that furthered his executions. Gradually, he made spontaneous comments about his work, and the following month began naming his work and declaring his intentions for the process at hand. He became independent in making choices and moved throughout the classroom. He is now an active player creating in all curriculum areas both inside and outside.
Freedom of choice in activities allows children the ability to experience their own path. Some are attracted by a specific material briefly once each session, repeating a pattern again and again. This “dabbling” behavior allowed a child like Sasha to move at the speed she needed, gain feedback at the end of the day from teacher and parent to reinforce the value of her work, and construct a body of projects on which to build. She was visually motivated and drawn to explore art media. She became more focused during activities, staying with these art projects longer each time. As a result, she was able to spend more time on her creations and looked for them at the end of the day, showing them to her parents with pride.
An easel offers easy access for painting, and teachers can support each child’s individual needs by offering more colors, more brush sizes and comments, which contributes narrative to the work. Twins Zachary and Annika encouraged each other to paint, each observing the other’s work and developing more modes of painting, for example, using stabbing movements, long lines of paint and circular brushwork. They often worked at opposite sides of the same easel, keeping each other in sight and offering paint cups to each other. As other children asked to share and paint with them, their enjoyment of these interactions led the twins to individuate in many areas of the classroom. They played separately with other children, “cooking” pretend food using play dough and feeding a whole family of babies. Their togetherness as twins remained, but they also included others in their play and work.
Emma enjoyed playing at the play-dough table gathering large balls of dough and making a mound. Later she named the mound “cake.” This word inspired teachers to add craft sticks for use with this three-dimensional material to replicate a birthday cake with candles. This addition brought creative cake-making not only to Emma but also many of her peers. Soon she not only made cakes, but also enjoyed the many imaginary culinary treats made by her friends at the outside kitchen area in the play yard. She enjoyed much more interactive creative play and worked toward more elaborate creations each time. She has also become closer to other teachers and children and allowed them to participate in her dramatic/pretend play, using an expanded vocabulary to offer and procure materials. She repeated and built on scenarios with teachers and her friends.
This concept of building on each experience applies to the auditory domain as well. We incorporated children’s names into traditional songs for music time, thus drawing attention to each child. Children learn melodies through repetition and the use of their names in the song piques their interest. For example in Bumping Up and Down in My Little Red Wagon, the second verse says “One wheel’s off and the axle’s broken.” Teacher Betsy Koning used illustrations of tools and a child’s picture to illustrate “Kash’s gonna fix it with his hammer.” In another example, children can be the goal of The Bear Went Over the Mountain by singing “And all that he could see were Rayden and Ignacio,” placing their pictures on the other side of the mountain as visual cues. Many children were included in I’ve Been Working on the Railroad when they are the one to blow the horn toward the end of the song. Children began to invent additions—such as Bina, who in Patty Cake came up with “we put it in the oven for Bina and me.” The possibilities of substituting names in songs are endless, and children love repeating songs and creating new lyrics and movements each time. Thus the music experience in a group becomes dynamic in their hands and in those of a creative teacher.