Creative Arts for Young Children

Art is so much more than paint, markers, or crayons. Creative arts are activities that actively engage children’s imagination through music, visual arts, movement and dance, and drama and storytelling. Creative arts engage children across all domains—cognitive, language, social, emotional, and physical. This tool kit will describe four different types of creative arts and will provide ideas for encouraging and supporting young children in creative arts activities at home and in the classroom. This article shows how art activities can support young children’s development.

Creative arts activities are deliberately open-ended, foster divergent thinking, and support the process without particular attention on the product. This article provides an overview of the creative arts as well as information on the theories that help guide the early childhood field and how to apply those theories in the classroom.

The Arts domain within the Illinois Early Learning and Development Standards provides reasonable expectations for children’s development in the areas of drama, music, visual arts, and movement and dance.

Movement and Dance

There are many ways to incorporate movement and dance into the lives of young children, whether at home or in a group setting.

• When out and about with young children, there are many opportunities to engage in meaningful activities and conversations. Dancing on the sidewalk—or any flat surface—is a great way to practice coordination and experiment with space, as shown in this tip sheet.
• It is important for young children to be active to build healthy habits early in life. When participating in fitness activities, it is important to stretch, warm up, and cool down. Catching and throwing a ball or jumping with both feet can help build confidence in large motor skills. This tip sheet provides additional ideas.  
• As families, we might spend time waiting—in line at the grocery store, in the carpool lane, in traffic, or at the clinic. This tip sheet series includes many ideas to help maximize that time and keep young children active and engaged in movement, language, or learning activities, including talking about math, art, music, science, and motor skills.
• In classrooms, teachers can use songs and stories during large group time to engage in active movement. These videos demonstrate this concept using both a story and a song.
• Active movement can be done anywhere, even without many props or supplies. These two blog posts provide ideas on connecting language with outdoor play and embedding gross motor opportunities throughout the day.
• IELDS benchmarks can be addressed through lesson plans, adapted for children with disabilities. Here is one example: Physical Development and Health Lesson Addressing Benchmark 19.B.ECb

Drama and Storytelling

Drama helps children develop imagination, language skills, confidence, creative expression, and cooperation and other social skills. Storytelling helps preschoolers get ready to become readers and writers. IEL has produced several tip sheets that help families and providers expand upon children’s pretend play and storytelling experiences, including using boxes and blocks for play, helping children dictate stories, and encouraging free time for young children.

• IEL Tip Sheets
  • Young Authors at Work: Story Dictations
  • Toys from Throwaways: Boxes
  • Drama and Young Children
  • Young Children Need to Play!
  • Time to Play, Time to Dream: Unscheduling Your Child
  • Make Room for Blocks!
• Many early childhood programs and homes include puppets in their dramatic play centers and toy boxes. Puppets can provide an opportunity for a young child to make up a story or reenact experiences they have had. These two blogs describe how puppets can be used in homes and early childhood settings and to address concerns about behavior or social-emotional development. 
• Reading together supports the development of children’s language and comprehension skills. This blog describes ideas for how caregivers can build on story time.
• Providing inexpensive props for young children is a good way to support the development of pretend play. As these videos demonstrate, boxes, play food and plates, a teapot, and a toy barn can provide opportunities for young children to engage in dramatic play.

Music

Music can help young children develop motor, language, social-emotional, and cognitive skills. As shown in the tip sheets listed below, there are many opportunities to embed music throughout the daily lives of young children. Adults and young children can sing songs, pretend to be animals, and make musical instruments together.

• IEL Tip Sheets
  • Sing, Play, and Hear: Music’s in the Air
  • Out and About with Preschoolers: Make Some Music
  • Things to Do While You’re Waiting: Music and Movement
  • Things to Do While You’re Waiting: Music, Sound, and Movement
• Evidence shows that interaction with music positively affects the quality of children’s lives. This resource list offers tip sheets and additional resources to help early childhood providers maximize those musical interactions.
• All children can benefit from interactions with music, including dual language learners and children with disabilities.
• Music can also be incorporated into classrooms using the Project Approach, as demonstrated in this project example.
• IELDS benchmarks can be addressed through lesson plans, adapted for children with disabilities. Here is one example: The Arts Lesson Addressing Benchmark 25.A.ECc

Visual Arts

Visual arts are a favorite activity for children and adults alike. Young children explore their world through their senses. Open-ended opportunities such as coloring, painting, and play dough or clay help children solve problems, enhance motor skills, build vocabulary, and more. Many IEL tip sheets describe how adults can support young children in visual art activities and experiences. Children can use chalk on sidewalks or crayons or pencils on paper to draw their pictures.

• IEL Tip Sheets
  • Out and About with Preschoolers: Close Up with Visual Arts
  • Things to Do While You’re Waiting: Art Is All Around (Graphic Tip sheet)
  • Things to Do While You’re Waiting: Art Works!
  • The Power of the Pen: Drawing and Scribbling
• STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) learning activities provide opportunities for young children to develop skills across developmental domains. This resource list provides IEL resources and additional sources of high-quality, interactive activity ideas for young children.
• When planning activities for young children, it is important to consider the process and how young children develop skills. Three-dimensional art can expand upon ideas and skill development by exploring design properties in new ways. Read the three linked blog posts for more details.
• Early childhood classrooms often include children with diverse abilities, experiences, and backgrounds. IEL has developed lesson plans for several IELDS benchmarks that show possible adaptations that can be made to include all children. The adapted lesson plans related to the arts include helping children describe or respond to creative work and using creative arts for self-expression.
• IEL’s benchmark videos demonstrate how various IELDS benchmarks are met. Children can draw a friend, paint a fence, draw a garden, paint with straws, and draw a wheel while gaining important skills and exploring visual arts.
• IELDS benchmarks can be addressed through lesson plans, adapted for children with disabilities. Here are two examples:
  • The Arts Lesson Addressing Benchmark 25.B.ECa
  • The Arts Lesson Addressing Benchmark 26.B.ECA