Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist when we grow up. – Pablo Picasso
We all should know how important it is for all generally good humans (kids or adults) to engage in artful moments. Whether it be performing arts, music, or visual arts, having a creative outlet has measurable benefits to your health and well-being. It gives you a way to express emotions when you just don’t have the words.
While I wish I truly was a “Renaissance [Wo]man” and a flourishing success in all areas of the arts, the reality is I’m just not.
In fact, most of my dabbles in performing arts and music are fairly laughable. But, I do love visual arts: doodling, drawing, painting, sculpture, collage. If I can make it with my hands, I’m game!
For me, art has always been my go-to for self-care. It’s one way I process my emotions and perceptions of whatever is going on in the world around me. The social, emotional and mental benefits of art have been huge in my life. It’s important for me to facilitate artful moments for my kids and develop their fundamental art skills so that they, too, can have art in their “tool belt” of self-care strategies.
But art is so much more than a self-care strategy! The educational benefits of art for kids are equally huge:
- Fine motor development
- Problem-solving
- Analytic skills
- Spatial awareness
- STEM concepts
As an educator, I have observed noticeable benefits of experimenting and creating with art. First and foremost, creating art fosters fine motor skill development. It also develops problem-solving and analytical skills, as well as spatial awareness.
STEM is definitely the buzzword in education these days and art is the great facilitator of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). Art helps develop conceptual and practical applications of math, particularly as they develop visual patterns and use measurements to create various scales.
Art also helps concepts of science and scientific thinking as children experiment with different materials and observe how they interact with one another (and don’t even get me started on the enormous benefits of ceramics in bridging STEM concepts…more on that later).
Artful moments will look different for different purposes, too. Here are 3 general categories I use with my children and students:
- Experimentation: children interact with different materials without any intended representational outcome.
- Collaboration: kids work on individual sections of a larger scale project
- Project Completion: kids follow steps to successfully complete a piece of art
Facilitating artful moments for your kids is important and can be done easily in any space. I’ll be posting easy project ideas and tips for managing art materials that will minimize the anxiety lots of adults experience when mixing kids and art. But, if we are going to raise generally good humans, we have to let them make art.
LifeByMrsD 