Clay is a flexible and responsive material and offers a comforting, satisfying means for expression and communication, encouraging children to shape their thinking into tangible forms.

Are you looking for ways to support your students’ creativity in the classroom? Working alongside teachers in a variety of contexts (early childhood, elementary, out of school), we’ve learned a lot about what instructional strategies are both easy for teachers and effective in real learning environments.

Children’s lives are busy and at times stressful: transitions from home to school, classroom to classroom, each space with its specific expectations and rules.

When children are accustomed to teacher-directed projects, it can take time to adjust to the flexibility and open-ness of more creative experiences.

I have been thinking a lot recently about how much of a child’s day is spent doing isolating, independent tasks.

If you are looking for a way to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his vision for a just and equitable society, consider pairing these hands-on art experiences with intentional dialogue around the meaning of his words. Promote critical thinking about topics of racism, social justice, and equity at all ages and stages of development.

A curriculum filled with opportunities for art and creativity boosts a child’s narrative and writing skills, strengthens vocabulary, and engages the brain in higher-level thinking such as questioning, generating ideas, and problem solving. But more importantly, an art-filled education that is child-led brings joy, and develops skills that worksheets and formalized schooling can’t teach.