“In our nurseries we see the expressive arts and design part of the curriculum as an opportunity for the children to experience everything in a way that is bigger and messier. We provide a wide range of materials with lots of everything.”
Imagination and creativity
Learn more about imagination and creativity as part of the early years foundation stage (EYFS), including advice from experts and suggested activities.
- Why imagination and creativity are important
- Video
- What the EYFS framework says
- What this means in practice
- Suggested activities
- Other activities
- What other nurseries and childminders are doing
- Summary
- Next steps
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Why imagination and creativity are important
Having an imagination is the ability of the mind to be creative and resourceful.
Creativity is children’s unique response to all that they see, hear, feel and experience. A child’s individual responses to materials, experiences and ideas inspire their creativity and imagination.
Children’s responses can be physical, emotional, social, cultural or a combination. Younger children might respond in verbal and non verbal ways, for example, a toddler swaying to music.
For young children to have an individual response it’s important you do not have a set goal. Children need their contributions to be noticed and valued so they build confidence and resilience. Give children enough space and time to experience and explore. Help and encourage them to develop their own curiosity and creativity. A child’s imagination and creativity are enriched through their awareness of art and other children around them. All of these creative experiences build powerful connections within the brain, Creativity is associated with focus, independence, a willingness to explore and ingenuity.
As children develop in imagination and creativity they are able to tell a story, relate to other people, keep themselves emotionally grounded and enter their imaginary worlds.
Video
In this video, an early years expert explains the importance of imagination and creativity in the early years foundation stage framework. There are also some tips on how to support children in this area.
The development of children’s artistic and cultural awareness supports their imagination and creativity. It is important that children have regular opportunities to engage with the arts, enabling them to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials.
Keith Haring on the Importance of Imagination in Art and Life
“People always ask me: ‘Where do you get all these ideas?’” Keith Haring mulled in a 1984 journal entry. “Information is coming from all kinds of sources, new sources every day…I digest [it], channel it through my own imagination, and put it back into the world.”
Haring was only 26 when he recorded these thoughts, but he’d already established a unique body of work and a vast fan base. Scrawled across subway stations and canvases, his fluid line paintings of radiant babies, barking dogs, and anthropomorphic TVs fascinated street kids and and the art establishment alike. They were symbols that coursed with life, radiated joy, and simultaneously made potent comments about sexual freedom, nuclear war, bigotry, AIDS, technology, and love. “I am continually trying to find new ways to bring these things into the world,” he continued in his journal, “and to expand the definition of what an ‘artist’ is.”
Haring often credited his innovative work to imagination, giving form to the term across his writings and interviews. In another page from his diary, written several months later in October 1984, he traced his imagination back to a relaxed mindset—one that allowed him to digest and remix the references that swirled around him in 1980s New York. “A lot of times images are simply born out of the need to do something different. Sometimes they come from consciously wanting to get some ideas across,” he wrote. “But often it just comes out of my imagination without trying to make it mean anything specific. The challenge is to be in a state of mind which allows spontaneity and chance while still maintaining a level of awareness which allows you to shape and control the image.”
In other words, imagination gave Haring space from everyday life to develop his own impressions and interpretations, while staying grounded in current social and political issues. In a 1992 biography by John Gruen, Haring’s close friend Madonna encapsulated this powerful duality: “From the very beginning there was a lot of innocence and a joy that was coupled with a brutal awareness of the world…I mean, you have these bold colors and those childlike figures and a lot of babies, but if you really look at those works closely, they’re really very powerful and really scary.”
This ability to fuse reality and fantasy, politics and playfulness, and pessimism and optimism set Haring apart from his artist peers. As historian Robert Farris Thompson described in the introduction to Haring’s published journals, “the richness and contrast of his work, babies and nuclear explosions, guys getting it on and angels swimming with the dolphins, a barking dog in the midst of technology, is unprecedented in twentieth-century art.”
It also endowed his paintings with with an almost universal appeal. In Haring’s estimation, his work was only successful if it engaged and inspired a broad audience—their imaginations were as essential to work as his own. “An artist putting as many images into the world as I am should be aware or try to understand what that means and how those images are absorbed or how they affect the world,” he explained in a 1985 interview. “I don’t think art is propaganda; it should be something that liberates the soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further. It celebrates humanity instead of manipulating it.”
In a 1984 article in Flash Art, he gave even more agency to his viewers: “Art lives through the imaginations of the people who are seeing it. Without that contact, there is no art.”
And Haring didn’t only revere imagination as essential to art. For him, it was also a panacea for the ills of technology and war. In one of his journal’s most prescient lines—which feels especially relevant in today’s technology-obsessed society—he goes so far as to suggest that the future of humanity depends on it. “The human imagination cannot be programmed by a computer,” he asserted. “Our imagination is our greatest hope for survival.”
How Arts and creative thinking help in Child Development
Every child is born with an imagination. Thinking process of children is creative and not necessarily follows a logical framework like us adults. Like they believe that brown chocolate milk which they drink comes from brown colored cow.
At times, parents and adults nurture children’s imaginations and take joy in their creative thoughts and acts. Other times, we might (deliberately or unknowingly) not pay attention to children’s imaginations.
Allowing children to use their imagination is necessary and this really helps in child development in the right direction. Restraining their creative thinking can largely effect their overall growth.
Imagination plays critical role in child development.
Every parent should nurture and encourage creativity in their kids.
Imagination is integral part of learning process. Imagination is the door to possibilities. It is where creativity and thinking out of the box begins. Imaginative and creative activities help children to learn about the world. During such activities, their right side of the brain activates. Thus it helps in inculcating art awareness, creativity, imaginative skills, etc. There are some activities which can help in the enhancement of creativity and imaginative skills in children like creative play with dolls, vehicles, blocks, rocks, cardboard, boxes,etc. Also activities like playing with clay dough, they will recognize the different colours, making sand castles with sand and water, working with art materials, dipping their hands in colors and making different forms using vegetables, fruits etc. for stamping, or pretending to fly with child can their development.
Creativity for Kids: Tips for Nurturing Creative Minds
· Spend time outdoors. The benefits of nature for child development are endless. Because nature is ever changing, this helps children to explore new things every day. The natural world inspires children to think, question, imagine, and develop creative minds. Children can draw in sand, make designs with flowers and peddles, build castles on sand, or simply lie on the ground and look up at the sky, to observe different shapes of clouds.
“NATURE is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty if only we have the eyes to see them.” – John Ruskin
- Encourage art activities. Art is creative expression that nurtures imagination. Through activities like painting, sculpture, collage, clay, drawing or any other medium we can enhance child’s creative skills. Art is also a way for children to work through emotions, make decisions, and express their ideas. Such activities provides children a sense of freedom to express their feelings, thoughts and also encourages focus and concentration. Art activities build confidence because children gain a sense of mastery over art materials resulting in a new creation.
“Art is as natural as sunshine and
As vital as nourishment” – Mary Ann F. Kohl
- Ask thought-provoking questions: Asking questions that provoke imaginative and creative thinking is an effective way to invite your child to express his ideas and share his visions. With this also giving him the confidence that his ideas are important.
- Limit screen time (television, movies, computer, tablet, smart phone, video games, etc.): Nurturing imagination, especially during this digital age can be tough. Focusing on a screen for long time restricts their mental growth, thus restraining the learning for children. An alternative would be to encourage children to create something new and different. Engaging them in a manner using their entire bodies and their five senses also opens the mind.
Provide children with the opportunities to imagine and create.
Gradually these habits will become part of their personality.
Thus making their minds creative and helping them become a great artist.
Early childhood is the peak time to nurture children’s imaginations. So if your child comes home and says, “. and then we drank brown milk that came from a brown cow,” or something similar, offer encouragement for their creativity and imagination.
