#childrenartclasses

Developing Artistic skills in young children is a different and fun way for a child to learn to express and talk about emotions and feelings. It promotes well-being and creates a space for social interaction.

Remember, if we only teach our children information, we are failing them. We need to equip our children with the skills to explore ideas and to have the confidence to experiment, problem solve and work out their own solutions. Be ready for their future in a very different and rapidly changing world.

Among the many benefits of art is that it can be used to stimulate the senses and spark a child’s natural curiosity. It allows each child to create their own journey of exploring ideas and concepts, such as what happens when you mix colours or combine shapes or compare rough and smooth. Your child discovers by doing – and that means discovering what doesn’t work, as well as what does work.

Artistic skills stimulate a child’s curiosity, creativity and imagination and support the development of communication skills. Being creative helps children cope with their feelings and fears, as well as manage their emotional states.

What do children learn through art?

Being involved and engaged in doing the right type of art and creative development activities can make a big difference when it comes to the quality and depth of learning. Open-ended process art is the key.

The idea is to eliminate learning by rote or copying someone else’s work. The approach is to avoid showing models or samples for the children to follow. Because the moment you show a child how you like something to look, her thoughts change and she will straightaway begin to copy rather than think on her own.

Process art has no planned product, no sample to copy – it’s more spontaneous and open-ended, teaching children to think and trust their own imaginations, their own ideas and to solve problems.

It is always letting the creative process paint the real picture – and we’re not just talking about drawing skills and artistic ability. Art and creative development activities help with everything from stimulating the senses and building self-esteem to problem-solving and enhancing social skills.

Mastering the art of growing up

Exploring the visual arts and making them an integral part of your child’s learning will be essential for nurturing and ensuring all-round development. Your child will first begin to enjoy the sensory nature involved during the process of acquiring creative art skills. As her physical control over the art materials improves, she’ll feel an enormous sense of satisfaction and empowerment.

She will also begin to acquire other skills that will play a key role in helping her grow into a balanced individual. Improved social skills will be the first of the many positive outcomes. By having to share art materials and collaborating on creative projects, your child will learn to wait her turn, negotiate and begin to understand what it takes to work as a team.

Participating in arts experiences leaves behind a positive impact on the entire family.  Parents meet new people who are like them, make friends and will feel less isolated. As for children, playing with art materials develops their interest in drawing and painting, transforming them into calmer, more expressive and spontaneous individuals. They also begin to acquire numerous life skills along the way.

Teaching children to think for themselves

Creative art skills help in cognitive development. For instance, early sensory exploration — the feel of a crayon across the paper, the smell of paint – stimulates and enhances their sense of touch. Decision-making skills are also honed, deciding what to paint and what materials to use, lays the foundations that will help them to face and handle complex decisions later on.

Approaching problems and developing the skills to solve them take deeper roots. Figuring out how to get two different materials to stick together, and understanding what makes them stay glued to each other., will only be the beginning of the ability to solve problems.

Art is a language, like any other. It is invaluable because it helps a child to express her thoughts and feelings freely, even though your child may not readily know the words to express what she feels. Self-expression will lead to picking up better ways to articulate and improve verbal communication. Enabling children to tell stories and be able to express their hidden thought and deeper feelings.

On the physical front, the small but critical movements of the fingers, hands and the wrist, will help your child to hold a crayon, pencil or paintbrush correctly. Helping her to draw, paint or scribble and write. Playing with playdough develops the fine motor skills of young children, and the large, arm movements required when painting at an easel or on a large sheet of paper on the floor, develop the large muscle groups.

Every child is curious, always questioning and inventive. Encouraging your child to experiment and take risks trying new things during the creative process, develops and nurtures the sense of innovativeness – a crucial and valuable skill in business and in life.

Benefits of arts during early years

Active involvement of your child in developing artistic skills and having enjoyable cultural experiences can enable her to cope with anything her life has in store for your child.

Artistic skills will help your child to acquire and develop subsequent abilities in the arts, the best part is, these skills will stay with her for life!

Help your child make sense of her cognitive, physical, emotional, spiritual, linguistic, and moral development by enhancing these experiences.

There is deeper bonding between the parent and child as you stay engaged with your child’s learning, creating a positive focus for shared experience and easy communication.

Play and art create opportunities for the exchange of ideas, increase confidence and invest in resources that assist your child’s learning as a natural part of everyday life. You as a parent, are obliged to expose your child to enjoy stimulating and compelling experiences at museums, galleries, theatres, libraries, dance, arts or music venues.

Artistic skills develop intrinsic human qualities, such as creativity, expression, identity, culture and imagination. Art enables young children to develop their own languages and shape their individuality and develops a sense of belonging.

Being able to create art from real life has a positive impact on confidence, self-esteem, personal, social, emotional development and behavioural health. It also breaks down language barriers and cultural prejudices, leading to decreased social tensions and resolving problems.

By far, the biggest advantage of having artistic skills is it adds energy and brings vibrancy to learning. Resulting in a much deeper understanding of our child’s needs and interests. This will lead to consistent improvement, rising standards of accomplishments and a higher sense of fulfilment for you as a parent!

About Abrakadoodle

Art education at Abrakadoodle creates learning experiences you can use to inspire your child to think different, be innovative, and devise ways that teach about interesting things found in the real world. Changing the way she discovers and imagines. Igniting her mind to think, play and learn like never before.

If you like to enrol your child in our children’s art classes or participate in cognitive learning activities, give Abrakadoodle a call. Or better still, make an appointment with the head of a centre near you.

Children love art! It does not matter to them how messy it can get – messy hands, clothes or even floor mats. Nothing else can make them happier than creating something through their own handiwork. The benefits of art will go beyond expectations, even way beyond just fun. Recent studies have indicated that the process of creating art helps support young children in almost all areas of their development!

Process art is the right way to go about engaging children to express themselves in ways other than traditional handwriting and reading comprehension exercises. This style of learning about art encourages discussion about what goes into making each piece while describing how it may have looked before or after a project is completed. Besides, while observing these changes, children begin to understand and explore different techniques, as well as get creative with their work. It can also be a really fun activity for an entire group of children.

Learning through play

The aim of process art is not just to teach how to do art. It’s about creating an environment for children to discover for themselves. It is about freedom, not rules. Children are more interested in learning how the art is being created than in what the finished product is going to look like. If the end result looks beautiful, that’s great. But it is about actually the doing, the thinking, and the experimenting that becomes the primary focus. And there are no mistakes in this process. If any, these so called “mistakes” become just as valuable – they become milestones and need to be treasured as your child’s ‘masterpiece’ work in progress reference points!

As stated earlier, process art is different. It is much more about a child’s own discovery, rather than adult-directed learning. It doesn’t mean that a child can’t be inspired by a subject, like when you sit down together to create a ‘cat’ for instance. It is a means to encourage everyone to freely choose the colours, shape, size, and design elements to include and express the idea of a cat.

You paint.  You draw.  You stamp.  Spray watercolours.  Collect leaves and twigs. squeeze glitter on the glue. You can even add birds.  You name it, you can do it. It is the most incredible creative process that will help you establish a wonderful sense of exploration and a feeling of peace.

The best part is your child decides when she is done with her work.  Adding layers upon layers with each passing moment, until her world begins to take shape before her eyes. Others might look upon the work as a mess, but to your child and you, it is far from that. It is purposeful, insightful, engaged creativity coming to life.

Process art is so open-ended, it helps you see into the mind of a child as she remains engaged throughout. The whole exercise becomes an experience: how you feel as you experiment, the ideas that you get, and the opportunity to try new things. It is all about creativity.

Creativity & logic

“Creativity” and “logic” are seen as vague concepts. But it will be wrong to neglect or ignore either of them in the development process of children. So let’s attempt to frame them in generally accepted terms.

Creativity is the ability to create unique ideas from existing memories. In other words, it is the ability to turn existing ideas into something unusual that didn’t exist before. Logic, on the other hand, is the ability to arrive at conclusions, or deductions, based on known information.

When it comes to art, you will discover that children learn through play. Children needn’t be told what to do, they only need to be given rich experiences to explore and engage in.  Process Art guides and enables them to raise the bar on their own learning and development.

Building new skills, improving outcomes

Making art helps improve your child’s fine motor skills and enhance her creative problem-solving abilities. Activities like finger painting, drawing, cutting and glueing paper, can help her develop better coordination and dexterity. Or while threading beads and sculpting clay can improve her visual-spatial skills.

You will also be surprised to note that young children truly enjoy an art museum experience. Try not to visit all the galleries in one sitting. Start by focusing on the whimsical and magical on your first visit, then take in other rooms on some other day. Look at paintings on nature and animals, and other topics of interest to your child.

By exposing your child to magnificent works of art, you will enhance her curiosity and enjoyment. It is an opportunity for thoughtful conversations with your child too. Talk to her about what she sees and thinks.

Challenge each other to find hidden objects in a painting. Or, wonder about a painting. Talk encourages your child to express what she is feeling. Prompt her by introducing new words into your sentences. Landscape paintings are ideal for expanding and stimulating imagination.

Long term studies have indicated that building these skills translates into better academic outcomes for children in other subjects including writing, literacy, mathematics, and science. A report from Americans for the Arts concluded that “children who regularly engage in artistic activities are four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement”!

Going beyond words

There are times when children find it difficult to put into words what they are feeling, simply because they have no words to describe them. This is why complex emotions may end up being expressed through anxiety, stress or trauma. This is a time to be cautious, notice changes in behaviour, and keep an eye out for those angry outbursts, withdrawal, or an inability to concentrate.

So how can you, as a parent, support a child to work through these experiences in constructive ways. One simple and gentle way is by encouraging your child to express her thoughts and feelings through art.

The language of art — colours, shapes, lines, and images — speaks in ways that words cannot. More importantly, children find that art helps them process their ideas, helping them to channel and express their experiences and deal with overwhelming emotions.

Art provides children with critical sensory input and allows them to express their feelings in a multi-dimensional way. Even if a child is not involved in creating the art, just being around art can provide your child with enough sensory inputs to kick start her imagination and engage her curiosity.

Creative learning

You will discover that art encourages creativity and imaginative thinking, two skills that are increasingly linked with long-term professional success. Simply put, art forces children to engage in out of the box thinking and can help them hone their creative problem-solving skills.

Creative learners are usually those who end up becoming “big-picture thinkers”. With your guidance, your child can become a change maker, the one who makes connections to fulfil needs through real life experiences. This can lead to a lifetime of seeking creative solutions to future problems yet to be encountered.

When, for instance, a child is painting a tigress by pretending to be a lioness! Adding a mane to her picture of a striped cat. Soon after that, she bounds off with a dry paintbrush-turned-sword and announces that she is Captain Hook pretending to be Peter Pan. Children like her flow with unusual, humorous ideas, demonstrating creative thinking abilities.

According to the International Child Art Foundation, “a child who is exposed to the arts acquires a special ability to think innovatively, and discover original ideas — key attributes for individual success and social prosperity in the twenty-first century.”

Treat colour as a learning catalyst

When moving with a purpose when learning more about colour will help your child develop her vocabulary, and complex thinking faculties, and enhance her keen observation skills. By using a variety of tactile experiences you can help your preschooler to gain a deeper understanding of the nuances of colour which will be missed out if left to a computer program or flashcards.

When you are out in the park, you can help your child collect leaves of various shades of green. Point out that just like families have different names, so do colours. Illustrate your conversation by accurately describing the many hues of green – emerald, moss, mint, fern, celadon, and avocado… You can ask open-ended questions about colours too: What are all the fruits and veggies you can think of that are coloured ‘green’? Work with paint to create new shades and tints. Then allow your child to mix yellow and red paints. After some time, introduce white so your child can see for herself how the colours soften or add bits of black and to see shades of orange emerge.

Exploring colour using accurate vocabulary and connections to real things will help your child internalize a deeper understanding of a concept that many adults understand only at a cursory level. As your child thinks deeply about colour and observes it intentionally, she will gain new perspectives on her rapidly expanding world. Creative expression is as natural and developmentally necessary for children as fresh air and sunshine is. And as a parent, you are your child’s first teacher. The conversations you have will help your child develop thinking skills that will stay with her for a lifetime.

About Abrakadoodle

This is the kind of process art learning experiences we use to inspire children to think differently, be innovative, and devise ways that teach about interesting things found in the real world. Changing the way children discover and imagine. Ignite their minds to think, play and learn like never before.

If you would like to enrol your child in our children’s art classes or participate in cognitive learning activities, give Abrakadoodle a call. Or better still, make an appointment with the head of a centre near you. Get a hands-on exposure to an experience that will make you see art in a way that adds value to life.

Consider this question first. Do you have any idea how many bits of information our brains take in every second? 11 billion bits! Out of which we process maybe 50 to 150 bits, and then can consciously hold just about 5 bits in our minds on a good day. 11 billion bits down to just 5. What a waste.

This means we are walking around eliminating almost everything that we see, and retaining only what we want to see. We’ve become really good at it. Bundling all these bits together and trying to make sense out of it. Skimming the surface, as opposed to unearthing the nuggets that might be lying just underneath. All because we don’t have the time.

So the less time we have and the more familiar we are with a given situation, the more likely we are to just take a superficial scan of the information we have, snatch and grab the bits of information we need, and think with it.

Which perhaps is why hacks and short cuts have become so popular. And which is why we end up making a mess of everything we attempt to do. So obvious. Superficial information, superficial thinking, superficial result.

It’s time for a way out of this mess: Art Jamming teaches you to get the most out of your thinking. Helps you work and operate in a creative space with a creative mindset. This is important, because both decide whether you will be happy and enjoy what you do in life, or continue to feel anxious every time you are faced with an out of the ordinary problem you can’t solve.

Art Jamming is a process art driven program designed to unjam the mind. Think with the blinds off. It aims to create an experience that is inspiring, rejuvenating and invigorating.

What is also so good about our Art Jamming sessions is you don’t need to know anything about art or painting. Or know how to hold a paintbrush in your hand even. In fact, the less you know, the better will be the outcome.

Our art jamming program does not assume anything. It is an all-inclusive process that engages both sides of the brain, simplifies complexity and helps you see better, think better, and work smarter at any age. Art Jamming helps bring a creative mindset to life through play.

What is a creative mindset? While everyone does some kind of thinking and has tools to work with, the mistake most people make is reverting back to a ‘business as usual’ kind of mindset. Instead of bringing an efficiency driven creative mindset, we bring a listless, dull mind.  Atrophied thinking doesn’t solve problems, it create them.

A creative mindset is ageless. It is an orientation with which you approach life in general, and problems in particular. It is a lens through which you look at everything you face and have to contend with.

A creative mindset helps you to observe and see clearly the assumptions that you make. This is important because assumptions drive behaviours, actions and shape outcomes. Hence, being able to see clearly, and not what you want to see, is a big help when it comes to living and solving problems.

So for you to be able to get those positive outcomes you are looking for, you really need to be working on developing a creative mindset which we are now going to look at closely.

Pushing the limits There are three elements that combine to developing a creative mindset. They all overlap, and in the centre there is a fourth element which is further amplified by the fifth. Confusing? Let’s simplify it.

The first element is to feel comfortable with ambiguity. It is that sense of feeling OK when we don’t know what to do next. This state gives you the tension and freedom to explore and swim in possibilities and figure out or make up, what to do as you go along.

Your mind is open and energized to discover new ways of looking at things. You are no longer fearful of thinking differently. You are not prejudiced or approach problems with preconceived notions either. You also avoid the trap of shutting down your thinking and accepting the first solution that pops up in our mind because it makes us feel better.

Bear in mind, most of the initial ideas that bubble up are generally superficial as they are an outcome of superficial thinking. So be careful, and remember, dive deep. To find one great idea, you may need to come up with many ideas.

Learn to keep an open mind Developing and increasing your comfort levels with ambiguity is the first place to start. The second element is staying curious — outlandishly curious — because this is what allows the mind to leap over the tangled problems filled space and go beyond.

Remember, only a questioning mindset helps you challenge the status quo. Challenge the assumptions people make or you are making. Besides, curiosity is the perfect antidote to help you climb out of a hole or the thinking groove you are stuck in.

When you feel that you’re hitting your head against a brick wall. Or think you are coming up with a same solution to solve a different problem, it means you’ve reached the limits of your current capability. Curiosity will help you to get excited about what you might find on the other side.

Enabling you to push the limits, help you step out of the circle you have drawn around yourself. Take the leap.

Break the walls down To feel comfortable with ambiguity and kindle curiosity, you need to embrace the third element — playfulness. You’ve got to play with everything — play with outlandish ideas, play with people, play with colours, play with all possibilities.

Play helps you focus on the process, rather than on the outcome that you’re trying to get. Just observe what children do when they’re at play? When they are making up games, they don’t care about the final result. It’s always about keeping the game alive. Children are masters at working with an ‘infinite’ mindset. Go back to being a child. Play!

The playful mind is what allows you to foster experimentation and iteration and ensures the flow of ideas.

Like a child, you will be in the zone, engrossed in your own thoughts, ideas and feelings. In fact, you will begin to art jamin real-time.

This is the missing link when you’re thinking about solving a problem. The trouble is everyone takes thinking too seriously. And that is a mistake. Because it puts everything under great strain and stresses every one out. Sure, breakthrough thinking is kind of hard, but there is nothing to stop it from being fun!

Finding the soul At the centre of all three of the elements we talked about, is the fourth – its purpose is to be generative. It is at the heart of the creative mindset. It is very much about bringing something new into being. Which means, the mind is optimistic, it’s generous. It is refreshing. It’s about feeling better and making life better.

So always come at the problem from a generative space. While, that’s enough on its own, it is not enough when you are working to be creative in a space that is full of stakeholders with different agendas and viewpoints. In other words, you are being told to apply and perform using a “business as usual(BAU)”approach and rewarded accordingly.

While BAU is useful if you are working with something that is a known quantity that already exists, it is utterly useless if you are asked to solve a new problem in a new space. It will not give you the outcomes of resourcefulness, agility, collaboration and creativity you are seeking.

Adding the fifth element To be creative in a human-centric way, you need to add one more element. And studies consistently show that this element actually amplifies creativity. If you want to be more creative, if you want to expand your creative mindset, then you need to add empathy.

You need to be able to look at things from different perspectives and to understand other people’s points of view. Understand what a problem means? And why a problem matters? Because it’s only then you’re going to come up with meaningful solutions that really create the value that you’re after.

So, if you want to get the most out of your thinking and out of any creative approach, the most critical factor to consider is to come at it by combining  a calm, collected mindset, and with empathy. This is more often than not, the missing link found in thinking in general, and corporate think in particular. It is sad but true.

Art Jamming in real-time

Art Jamming is a free for all session. Whatever you draw or paint, whatever the subject matter, it may not look like something you’d instantly recognize. But wait, there are two interesting bits of good news here.

One, all of us can draw and paint. It is a skill anyone can learn at any age. And two, at the end of our Art Jamming session, you will walk away knowing that you not only can draw and paint, but also discover that you have had a creative bent of mind all along, you just didn’t realize it.

You are primed to solve any problem life might want to throw at you.

Make the world a better place

Art Jamming sessions at abrakadoodle helps you feel comfortable and work with ambiguity; helps develop curiosity; demonstrates the advantages of being playful;and shows how to generate ideas that are driven by empathy. That’s what Art Jamming with us will be all about.

Remember, the underlying principles you learn from our Art Jamming sessions can be applied to resolve any problem or situation. It will not only help you excel at work but also to experience what living life to its fullest feels like.  You will learn to nurture and actualize your creative thinking capabilities in real-time.

What is Creativity?

Creativity is the ability to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods and interpretations that entail originality, progressiveness and imagination. Creativity is useful in solving problems and communication with others. Children may display creativity in their art, the language they use, the sounds they make, the clothes they wear, how they move and many other ways. Being creative helps children to adapt and respond to a rapidly changing world.

Creativity should be an important part of our children’s education!

Today our schools are focusing upon basic skills, which is important. We need to make sure that our children learn core competencies in basic reading, math and other key academic areas. Unfortunately, too often this happens to the detriment of other learning areas, especially art and creativity. In fact, 44% of school districts across the US report a decrease in the time spent on art, music and science and other areas*. Yet ever increasing globalization and competition require creative thinkers who can innovate.

Do all children have creative potential?