Creative Time - At nursery we love to encourage the children to get creative and explore paints, glue and materials to create wonderful pictures. We encourage the children to use a variety of tools to create marks independently. 

Creative play is a vital part of childhood and child development. Through creative and imaginative play children can grow emotionally, socially, intellectually, and even physically. Creative experiences help a child develop these skills and enable them to share their thoughts, feelings and ideas. Exposing children to creative opportunities contributes to, and furthers their development.

Benefits of creative play 

1. Hand & Eye Co-ordination: Learning to develop fine motor skills takes practice. Whether it’s learning to hold a pencil, mark making or scissor skills, creative activities help to develop your child’s proprioceptive input, dexterity and tactility. This also helps your child to compare different materials.

2. Sensory Development: Children makes sense of their world by taking in information from their many senses. Being involved in creative activities helps your child to develop their observation skills, ability to listen to instructions, explore different textures, recognise different smells and gain an understanding of their world.

3. Communication skills: Creative activities help children to develop their listening skills, express their feelings, describe their activities and actions, developing their language and their attention to detail.

4. Confidence: Developing children's own ideas and turning them into something they can hold in their hand, promotes deep pride, satisfaction and self-worth. This enables children to gain confidence in their abilities to develop their thinking as they know their ideas are recognised and valued. 

Some of our favourite creative activities within under 3's - maybe you could try them at home?

• Getting messy with our hands/feet - creating footprints with paints.
• Junk box modelling - gluing, sticking and painting, using a range of materials to create our own structures.
• Free choice painting - exploring paints with brushes, sponges and tools. 
• Ball Rolling - Using sensory balls with paints to create patterns onto paper. 
• Creating animal footprints - using dinosaurs or farm/wild animals to create their footprints onto paper. This promotes communication by using animal sounds within play.