Art-Based Centers for Children

Art-Based Centers
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Art-Based Centers
Part 1: How arts-based centers nurture children’s creative expression
Arts-based centers nurture creativity among children by providing spaces to expose them to different aspects of the creative space. Naturally, young children have curiosity that needs to be satisfied hence will look for opportunities to express themselves. Having the proper environment encourages young children to tap into their creative side, thus enabling them to develop these skills. Therefore, an arts-based center creates opportunities for creative expression through the provision of an open learning environment that encourages children to be themselves.
Firstly, arts-based centers have the necessary tools required to promote learning in young children. Being specially equipped to handle the needs of young and creative students enables them to choose from a variety of tools which they might find interesting and engaging (Isbell & Yoshizaw, 2016). A learner can thus select activities such as drawing on pieces of paper or choose to model from lumps of clay. Such diverse choices provide a wide range of activities that can sharpen the child’s mind, thus increasing their creative potential. Furthermore, young learners can also identify the activities that they enjoy more, thus providing teachers with information on how to improve the learning processes for each student.
Additionally, these centers also include a pool of students who can learn and encourage each other by engaging in activities as a group. Through the socializing during activities, young learners develop essential skills of collaboration, thus developing into better students (Isbell & Yoshizaw, 2016). Through group activities, learners tend to work together to solve simple problems, thus teaching the importance of such events in daily life. Consequently, the creativity of individual learners can be improved by gauging their interactions with other learners.
Furthermore, arts-based centers also give learners the leeway to do their projects without interruptions. Such open-ended learning ensures that learners can gain the confidence required to work individually on their projects (Fox & Schirrmacher, 2014). Since there are no assessment criteria of the works done, the learners are free to complete their work in any way they deem fit. Therefore, teachers can watch the students attempt to complete different forms of projects without the need to interrupt to correct them. This ensures that the learners can spontaneously create new forms of art through their imagination hence nurturing their creativity.
Part 2: Adapting arts-based centers for different age levels from toddlers to fourth graders
Arts-based centers must be created with particular regard to the age of the children involved to ensure that each child can engage with material appropriate for that particular stage. Furthermore, the complexity must also increase with age since the needs for children develop as they grow older. Therefore, teachers must put such factors into consideration to ensure that they can engage students uniformly across different age groups while maintaining their creative edge.
For toddlers, simp...