Imagining the World Through Arts: Creative Development Essay

This essay discusses the significance of creative arts in early childhood development, focusing on how art forms like dance, crafts, music, and drama nurture creativity and imagination. It highlights the four interconnected strands of art education: understanding context, gaining practical knowledge, creating art, and interpreting art. The essay emphasizes the benefits of creative arts, including physical and mental development, stress reduction, and emotional stability, particularly in enhancing motor skills through activities like drawing and dancing. It also explores how creative arts provide an outlet for children to understand and manage their emotions, referencing Lev Vygotsky's theories on social learning and imitation. The essay concludes by advocating for the use of activity-based learning principles to foster holistic development in children, making it a valuable resource for understanding the importance of arts in early education.

Running head: IMAGINING THE WORLD THROUGH ARTS
Imagining the World through the Arts
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1IMAGINING THE WORLD THROUGH THE ARTS
Talking in the context of the children the creative arts refers to the practices and the
forms of arts which nourishes the creativity in each of the children during their early childhood.
The examples of such art forms are dancing, art and crafts, music, drama and puppetry. These
types of art forms initiate and shape a child’s imagination and open several exclusive
possibilities for each and every child. The creative arts are another way to teach the children that
it is not right to emphasize only on the results rather than the method or the way by which a
person reaches the conclusion is far more significant. Creative arts open up several domains and
foster flexibility in the minds of the children.
The types of Creative Arts judge the knowledge, competencies, and values, of the
children developed by them after learning the various types of creative arts. Each of the genres of
the art ( like dance, art and crafts, visual arts and music) is formed around four strands which are
inter-related with each other. The four strands are: Understanding the context of the art, gaining
the practical knowledge of the art form, the ability creates in arts, the ability to interpret and
communicate the various forms of arts. Understanding the theme of art helps learning to
acknowledge the power of arts to shape the entire world(Durden, Escalante & Blitch, 2015).To
enquire about the evolving nature of art over a period of time, the forms of art have been
constantly changing and adapting with the evolving emotional state of the human beings. This
also helps to find out the interrelation between tarts and the contemporary forms of art in the
creative industry.
The function of the next strand is to develop the practical skills required to master a
particular form of art and to connect them (Russell-Bowie, 2012). This form teaches exploration

2IMAGINING THE WORLD THROUGH THE ARTS
and experimentation of the methods of the art forms, learning and using different structures,
technologies and processes related to the arts and also engaging with others who are interested in
these forms of art and to interact and learn from them. It also makes one to apply new techniques
in the practical application of the arts.
The students develop the ability to put forward creative ideas with the help of various
types of creative art forms and in this way, they also develop a creative power (Wilkinson et al.,
2017). By going through the process of arts and making up different ideas to create a new form
of it. Building confidence and expressing one’s emotions and feelings through the forms of
creative art, sharing the ideas of development with others for further learning, creating unique
artwork reflecting the knowledge gained from the learning and practice.
Communicating and interpreting in the arts helps to promote and refine the chances of the
children and also to share and convert the meaning of the creative forms by presenting their own
form of art using the contemporary forms of art (Ewing, 2010 ). Viewing the works done by
others from a critical point and to respond to such art works. Challenging oneself and others to
practice a different form of learning the new ways of the art forms. To understand the ideas
related to various forms of art and practicing various forms of the same.
The benefits and significance of creative arts in the early childhood include the physical
and the all-round mental development of the children; it helps to reduce stress and also at the
same time enhances emotional stability. One may easily question that how the creative arts can
help in the development of motor skills in the children, but the answer is rather a simple one.
While drawing or creating crafts the children develops their ability to hold things and utilize
them as per their necessity enhances their physical movement skills (Hopkins, Geangu &

3IMAGINING THE WORLD THROUGH THE ARTS
Linkenauger, 2017). Although people take, their ability to work and function for granted but
everyone has adapted with their motor skills since their childhood, and these skills are developed
in the stages of early childhood. The different types of activities help to build the ability to
function properly in the children. For example, at the time when a child tries to draw something
or try to grab something using their hand then it enhances the eye co-ordination with the hand
(Formosinho & Formosinho, 2017). While dancing, playing the children the children engages
into various physical movements, which also increases their physical abilities. All these skills
later help in the future proper body function when children grow into an adult.
Obviously, the creative arts provide an outlet to the youngsters to investigate and take up
control over their feelings, as well (Stoll, 2015). The expressions of the humans have dependably
been believed to be an enthusiastic and expressive diversion, and this remains constant for kids
too, despite the fact that in a way unique in relation to for more established people (McPherson,
2015). For instance, while human expressions enable grown-ups to show sentiments they may in
some way or another experience issues communicating. The show of the human experience helps
the children to explore their own feelings, and this helps them to become better furnished to
manage the high points and low points that will end up being a part of their lives as they grow
up.
As told by the scientists, the form of creative arts help the kids to learn about subjectivity
of a thing (Duffy, 2006). As per Lev Vygotsky, such ways help the children to learn certain new
things, the children learn by trying to understand the meaning of the actions they see in their
surroundings and they then start copying the same. Besides, according to him the social
interaction of the kids was very important for this particular process, calling it "platform," where
a child with a very limited knowledge base expands his/her aptitude level by copying an

4IMAGINING THE WORLD THROUGH THE ARTS
individual with a bigger and better learning base, like a grown-up (Moore, 2017). For instance, if
a kid with low motor skills see that another child is doing good at painting then the other one will
try to imitate the child will better abilities and will learn in the process.
The direction of activity is the example of a suitable pedagogical principle, which helps
in the intellectual, and the aesthetic development of the children. The children copy the activities
from others and they learn in the process (Stoll, 2015). This process is now mostly followed in
the primary schools where the teachers perform various activities, the children follow and in
turn. While selecting these activities the teacher needs to be careful and follow certain sub
principles (Singer, 2017). The learning objectives and the learning procedures should be similar
in every way. Activities make the children learn a lot of things and they carry this knowledge
further into the future when they grow up. Thus, direction of activities is one of the most
important principles for all round development

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McPherson, G. E. (Ed.). (2015). The child as musician: A handbook of musical development.
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2012-14: Spring 2015.

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