Microsoft Word lilly creativity (early childhood) done docx

Creative Curriculum
In a study exploring whether play is mutually exclusive with learning, Samuelsson and 
Carlsson (2008) suggest a curriculum for early childhood education that does not distinguish 
between learning and play in order to promote creativity for future generations. While children 
blend the two when they act, they distinguish them in their speech. The idea here is to foster the 
experience of learning as joyful and related to play in order to encourage and enhance processes 
such as creativity in the future. Creativity is an aspect of all learning in preschool; therefore a 
close connection (association) between learning and play will foster this process. 
The results of a longitudinal cultural study of children’s drawings found that intentional 
teaching (structured lessons) at an early age can help children display higher levels of creativity 
because of the development of their representational skills that allows them to be creative. Thus, 
creativity might be enhanced by the incorporation of intentional teaching in early childhood 
education in order to promote the developmental skills in young children that would give them 
the opportunity to express their creative ideas (Huntsinger et al., 2011). 
On the other hand, Dababneh, Ihmeideh and Al-Omari (2010) found a need for 
improvement within teachers’ classroom practices that focus on knowledge retention rather than 
children’s creative abilities. They concluded that Jordanian teachers need more training on how 
to prepare creative lesson plans in the form of pre-service training courses for developing 

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creativity in children. The aim of the study was to create an awareness and motivation in teachers 
to pursue novel approaches in fostering creativity in children. 
Preparing for future Creativity
Sternberg (2003) states creative thinking is characterized as “buying low and selling high” which 
leads to defying the crowd. In this process it is easy for children to lose sight of their motivation 
to endure the creative process that may take a long while before it is valued. Therefore it is the 
parents’ and teachers’ responsibility to help prepare children for these obstacles by introducing 
them to stories about creative individuals who were not supported in the early stages of their 
development. Supporting children’s efforts to “surmount an obstacle” should also be praised 
whether they were entirely successful or not and spotlight the correlation between creativity and 
resilience. 
Educators and parents 
must
allow room for children to make mistakes and discuss those 
mistakes in order to realize that creativity results from a new way of thinking that formed after 
collaborators took risks and made mistakes. Children in social situations such as school often 
experience the negative ramifications of being an independent risk taker. Often children that 
think, act, and look different are disenfranchised and may learn to avoid social disapproval. 
Educators and parents may promote creativity in young children by inspiring their children to 
define and redefine problems and projects. For instance, providing children with a choice 
between two projects is not as beneficial as allowing children to decide on a project of their own 
making. This gives children the ability to develop taste and good judgment which are essential 
elements of creativity. The importance of reflection in creativity is important when teaching 
children how to recognize mistakes and in turn to redefine their choices (Sternberg, 2003). 

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Here again, creativity is related to the ability to delay gratification and maintain the 
motivation to persevere. Creativity creates an environment where hard work is not immediately 
rewarded. Educators and parents can help young children develop these skills by promoting long 
term projects at home or in school where children have to wait for a reward (Sternberg, 2003). 
Suggestions for creative enhancement include the intention to be creative. Teachers should first 
make it a student’s goal to learn knowledge/basic skills as they are essential for the development 
of creative potential. More knowledge allows for more opportunities to recombine information, 
thus helping build upon potential to secure creativity (Paulus & Brown, 2003).