How to Cultivate Children's Curiosity and Creativity

Several Ways to Cultivate Creativity in Children

          1.Provide an environment in the home that supports creativity and emphasizes the arts. Encourage activities that foster creative thinking, like painting, drawing, sculpting with play dough or clay, crafting and DIY, building, playing and listening to music, and dress up and dramatic play. For students enrolled in K12 Art courses, many of these art supplies are included with course materials. Consider making supplies accessible to kids and encourage artistic expression outside of school time.

          2.Preserve creativity by satisfying children’s natural curiosity. When children are at the age where they ask tons of questions, parents should do their best not to get annoyed, and instead try to provide or seek out the answers. Better still, teach children how to find the answers themselves.

          3.Focus more on original ideas, and less on “getting the right answer”. Kim explains that parents should encourage imagination and original ideas in children’s writing and drawings, rather than focusing on spelling errors or accurate depictions. Children can be taught to catch and fix mistakes, but creativity is much more difficult to teach.

          4.Encourage unconventional approaches to problems. Provide choices and allow students to use alternative methods of demonstrating their learning. By allowing a variety of activities and topics to study, parents and teachers can encourage creative thinking. The K12 curriculum allows for choice by including a range of optional lessons and activities for students and learning coaches to choose from.

          5.Limit passive activities, like television viewing. Interestingly, researchers disagree on the effects of video games. Some creativity experts believe both gaming and television are detrimental to creative thinking, however a study published earlier this year found a positive correlation between playing games and increased creativity in children. Further studies will no doubt focus on this link, but it’s still best to set reasonable limits on gaming and encourage other forms of creative and active play.

         6.Play! Kim says parents should engage students in flexible and playful thinking and allow for spontaneity and the occasional silly answer, rather than attempting to force maturity.

How to Promote Curiosity

        1.Present your child with open-ended activities or toys: A jigsaw puzzle has only one ‘correct’ outcome, but a set of blocks presents your child with a myriad possibilities.

        2.Plan some surprises: Set up some activities with unexpected outcomes and let your child explore. This could be as simple as hiding a toy in a new place or putting a teaspoon of sugar inside a balloon before you blow it up. Let your little one shake it and hit it.

        3.Embrace mess: Let your child discover that when they pour water on themselves, their clothes get wet. Let them mix the play dough colours together! You’ll be allowing them to satisfy their curiosity as well as experiencing the natural consequences of their actions in a safe way.

        4.Have fewer rules. What? Yes, you read correctly - have fewer rules. This doesn’t mean not having boundaries, but consider how many rules you have in place for your child and check what your intention is behind these rules. Having too many rules curbs your child's natural curiosity.

        5.Answer your child's questions. Find developmentally appropriate ways to answer questions, even those you find awkward, such as questions about where babies come from or what that dog is doing to the other dog. Also ensure that you gauge your child’s thoughts on the topic as a starting point for any conversation.

        6.Be curious. Model curiosity in your interactions with your little one. If you are curious about your child’s world, her thoughts and ideas she will realise that she has good ideas and be more inclined to seek out more information to form new ideas. Story time presents a great opportunity to ask for your little one’s thoughts about the characters, objects and so forth. Encourage her to become a good questioner by asking age-appropriate thought-provoking questions that are open-ended rather than a yes-no question. Example: What was the best part of your day? rather than: Did you have a good day?