Does your child play with their friends and imagine they are flying a rocket, driving a car, a princess in a castle, a teacher, nurse or doctor. This is the start of using expressive arts in early years.
Many curriculums encourage this particular role play, expressing their imagination, emotions, communication and developing socially.
When playing with your child try to encourage their imagination and expressions by allowing them to be creative, say, to move the furniture to make a car with passengers or to put a sheet over the table so they can have a cubby house.
Join in with them; there is nothing better than being able to allow the child to direct their own learning. Instead of a teacher or parent directed-learning the child will be encouraged to play in a way (self directed learning) that it allows them to develop their own pathway.
He or she could be an explorer and find wild animals in the garden. There are many activities you can encourage!
If your child has found this difficult so far, try and develop them in this area.
Start off the role-play by choosing a theme they are interested in e.g race cars, let’s pretend you are a car racing through the garden, play areas, ask open ended questions like what colour is the car, where are you racing to? how fast is the car going?
Alternatively you could be an astronaut in a rocket, place 2 chairs together the sit with your child and pretend you are flying to the moon. Again ask open ended questions, what did you see? What colour is the planets? Did we go past the stars? Is it a bumpy ride? What colour is the rocket? And many more questions can be asked.
There are many other ways to develop a child’s imagination through technology, smart board activities at school and on to applications on tablets, iPads, etc.
In the early years, your child’s imagination is developing and needs to be encouraged to continue innovating more and more scenarios.
The following websites look at different activities in Expressive art and Design in early years
– Pinterest – Activities at your finger tips
– Clever Patch – Make your own dress ups
– Edx education – (Global Based) Look at the early childhood products to create an imaginative play areas at home or school. (Contact the office for local distributors.
There are many more activities with suppliers available. If you know of a great one please feel free to comment below.
Early Years 