Children are born with unlimited potential of learning and creativity. We can uncover their hidden abilities, sharpen their senses and liberate their unique intelligence by providing them with enabling environment. Creativity and critical thinking are processes that are child led but which benefit greatly from the sensitive contributions of others. Sakalya Prep has designed age appropriate activities which are done in preschool for providing that exact environment to children.
Third in the series, Sakalya Prep is sharing insights with the parents to understand the essentials that goes into fostering creativity and critical thinking in children. Parents will be able to figure out and do the balancing act once they acquaint themselves with the theory behind the effective practices in relation to creativity and critical thinking followed by the early childhood educators in Sakalya Prep.
Carving the path:
We have observed that children are naturally creative and flexible in their play, turning anything that they can reach into something that they can investigate. Creativity emerges as they become absorbed in exploring what things are like and what they can be made to do. These self-initiated investigations help them to give meaning to the things, sounds and situations around them and they seem to have their own agendas and ideas as they play.
By directing children’s attention during play, adults often disturb a child’s flow of ideas. However, simply being attentive to a child’s explorations and inventions is helpful as this promotes a sense of security and gives licence to experimentation and risk-taking. It is proved that when children are given opportunity to explore new possibilities and create new and exciting connections between people, places and things, children discover new meanings in their worlds. They are also learning that they can transform ideas and rethink what they know. In this way, creativity can transform understanding by fostering critical thinking and allowing children to review, reinvent and make new meanings.
Effective practice in relation to Creativity and Critical Thinking
Making connections:
Help children to make connections in their learning by linking free play to adult-led activities. For instance, after reading the story of “thirsty crow” to your child, let her try and see how the water level rises in a pot when she put pebbles into that.
Encourage creativity and opportunities for all children to link their ideas to new situations by introducing: new places, things, situations, materials, artifacts and spaces to the children.
Tell stories that present different possibilities within familiar situations to stimulate children to make new connections. For example, read Way Down Deep in the Deep Blue Sea by Jan Peck where bath-time becomes an imaginative exploration of an underwater world. This might stimulate enquiry into sea life and can add creative and imaginative dimensions to water play.
Provide opportunities for children to express their ideas in a variety of ways, for example, through movement, dance, painting, imaginative play and language.
Appreciate children’s ideas and individual ways of capturing and representing them.
Make it easier for children to make connections by giving them easy access to resources and allowing them to move materials from one place to another.
Transforming understanding:
Create conditions within which children are inspired to be creative and rethink ideas, for example, create novel spaces by moving furniture or promote new relationships by changing age groupings. Sakalya Prep do have mixed age group classes for activity based learning.
Provide resources from a variety of cultures to stimulate new ideas and ways of thinking. In Sakalya Prep we do organize story telling routed in various mythologies across the world.
Sustained shared thinking:
Give children time to explore and develop their initiatives. Encourage them to discuss what they are doing and what they want to achieve.
Build on children’s ideas as you help them to see new possibilities in their play.
Listen to and discuss children’s ideas; offer suggestions and pose questions that extend their thinking.
Sakalya Prep has integrated effective strategies into its curriculum to exercise the creative and critical thinking skills of preschoolers which will help them to discover the boundlessness of their unlimited potential.
References
The Early Years Foundation Stage 00012-2007CDO-EN
Pierce, D. (2000) ‘Maternal management of the home as a developmental play space for infants and toddlers’, The American Journal of Occupational Therapy, May–June, vol.54, no.3, pp.290–99.
About the author: Lt Col Bincy K Thomas (Retd) is the Co-founder and Director of Sakalya Wisdom Foundation, an organisation committed to design and offer meaningful educational services and activities. She is the Director of Sakalya Prep, The Holistic Preschool, Whitefield Bangalore. She is the Trainer and Pedagogy Expert in Sakalya Centre for Professional Development, training Centre for Teachers Professional Development, School Leaders Development Programs and Parenting Programs. She is researching into creating a dynamic holistic early childhood pedagogy. Presently She is pursuing Certificate in Early Education Leadership from Harvard Graduate School of Education, USA. Other areas of her interests are world mythologies, philosophy, social, emotional and spiritual development, leadership, gardening etc.
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