By Nancy Sivilai
August 2026
The goal in creative art is to help your child express his own original ideas through art and develop in various developmental areas.
One important aim of creative art for your child is the joy it brings in being involved in creating something original. It offers your children an opportunity to express emotions, develop thinking and reasoning skills and promotes cognitive growth. Creative art opens an endless opportunity for trying out ideas and putting them into practice. Children can try many alternative ways to solve problems. Your child gets the opportunity to be himself, create a unique product and diversity flourishes.
As a parent you may encourage creative art activities for your children by trying any of the following suggestions:
- Painting – For younger children it is wise to begin with the basic experience of a few colors, one size of paintbrush and standard size paper. If your child is older, explore a wider variety of colors, different textures of materials, different size brushes. Paint to music, use watercolors, or try printing, stamping, or sponge painting.
- Finger Painting – This is one of the most relaxing art activities for older children although it is messy. Finger painting offers free expression and is a sensory experience for your child. As an alternative you may want to use soap foam or shaving cream.
- Collage – This offers your child an opportunity to select materials and make choices from a wide variety of materials such as foil, yarn, shells, or leaves. It helps your child to learn about design and composition. College is not intended to make a picture, but to encourage appreciation of contrast in texture and color and to enjoy design based on differences.
- Dough and Clay – These materials provide opportunities to use a three-dimensional medium to create. They also encourage your child to develop fine motor skills as they pull, poke, or squeeze and roll it into shapes or cut it with cookie cutters or other utensils.
How Creative art impacts your child:
- In Cognitive Development, your child will be engaged in a wide range of skills focused on using his/her problem-solving thinking and reasoning skills in decision making. Incidental learning results as colors mix and form new colors. Your child learns to identify patterns, colors, textures, shapes. Your child is learning math, science, nature, and new language vocabulary.
- In Physical Development, creative art encourages your child to use his fine motor skills and improve hand-eye coordination which will be essential for writing skills and sports later on.
- In Social Emotional, creative art allows your child to develop feelings of self-esteem through a safe and positive experience. It provides an outlet to expression for seeing things in a new way that is individual.
- In Language Development, creative art fosters development of language as your child learns new vocabulary in naming colors, shapes, textures, name of art tools, techniques and extends conversation about what he needs, likes and is making. Finally, creative art will allow your child an excellent opportunity to express self uniquely and to be himself. At the same time develop physically, socially, mentally and verbally. Enjoy doing some creative art with your child. Teacher Nancy
