Understanding Children’s
Creative Thought and
Expression
ECEC 3214
Lyn Steed
What are the Arts?
• Dance: body awareness, fundamentals of movement,
creative expression, multisensory integration
• Drama: creative dramatics, pantomime,
improvisation, characterization, play production
• Music: sound, pitch, rhythm, singing, playing
instruments, playing musical games, listening,
creative movement.
• Visual Arts; self-expression, visual and tactile art,
print and craft media, analysis, and interpretation.
Why the Arts?
• To express themselves
• To communicate with others
• Enhance intellectual, social and
emotional growth.
• Allows exploration, experimentation,
and self awareness.
• To discover our creative potential.
Integrating into the Curriculum
• Contributes to improving critical thinking,
problem solving, and decision making.
• Influences and fosters higher order thinking
skills (HOTS)
• Addresses and encourages multiple
intelligences
• Broadens and enriches the child’s potential
as a productive member of society.
• One of best sources for understanding other
cultures.
Integrations of the Arts
• Key to bringing meaningful,
appropriate and relevant global arts
experiences to children.
• Encourages and promotes acceptance
of all people.
Theorists Contributions to the
understanding of creative thought
Humanistic Theory
• Carl Rogers: The creative person in fully
functioning.
• Abraham Maslow: The creative person is
self-actualized.
• Rollo May: Being creative is being
courageous.
Psychoanalytic Theory
• Alfred Adler: Creativity is a way of
compensating for perceived physical or
psychological inferiority.
• Carl Jung: Creative ideas emanate from a
deeper source from the collective
unconscious.
• Jean Piaget:: Creativity is a type of problem
solving that depends on the child’s thinking
processes/
Contemporary Theory
• Howard Gardner: Multiple Intelligences
Creativity consists of a constellation of nine different
intelligences.
Robert Sternberg: Triarchic theory
Creativity is a cluster of three types of abilities:
synthesizing, analyzing, and practicing.
Mihaly Cslkzentmuihaly: “Flow Theory”
Creative individuals acquire competence in a domain
of interest and pursue the interest with passion and
enjoyment.
Activities
• The Dot and activity
• Ish and activity
• Multiple Intelligences Inventory