Report ResearchThe Importance of Imagination, Creativity and Play in Child Development I’m investigating the importance of imagination, creativity and play in child development. I believe that I shall write my report as an industry report to learn what is actively being done for child development currently. My reasoning for this subject is because I want to understand what children need to develop within our world as they are my preferred target audience. Imagination Children are still learning and adapting to the world around them using their curious minds, meaning that children are still experimenting with the boundaries of possibilities and impossibilities. The use of their imaginative minds encourages their creativity further and therefore improves creative thinking and problem solving. "In Kirsty Thompson’s classroom at the Iona school, the children don’t even have any ready-made toys in the room. They have to use their imagination to make what they want. Here boys and girls are playing together, rather than self-segregating, to make towers from wooden blocks and to play dressing up with cotton and woollen sheets." Manzoor (2016) Creativity The use of creativity allows children to use their freedom of exploring, experimenting and taking risks into becoming innovative and learn to toggle between possibilities and reality. Creativity allows them to develop their ideas, that they’ve established through their imagination, for external use to share with others, either visually or through play. “Creative people have new ideas, but this doesn’t make them revolutionaries. It means they are using their adaptive human intelligence. Seeing new ways of doing things is part of intelligent behaviour. It is central to creativity. Creativity is a high-level aspect of thinking because it shows depth of:
Play Learning through play is hands-on approach to discover about their surroundings and experiment with its potential. It allows the child to use their creative and imaginative minds in the circumstances that they’re needed. Play also contributes to the social aspect in child development, learning how to socialise and interact, as well as empathy. "In 2012, a review of more than 40 studies highlighted the relationship between play and creative problem-solving, cooperation and logical thinking. Research by Edward Fisher also found that play can enhance early development by anything from 33% to 67% by increasing adjustment, improving language skills and reducing social and emotional problems. This has positive implications for both educational development and everyday intellectual life." Oldfield (2015) I want to conclude with how important imagination and creativity can lead to effective-learning play which then feeds back into ideas about the world as they develop throughout their childhood. Ackerman, D. (2000) Deep play. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Barnard, J. (2006) The nesting instinct. The Guardian. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/apr/15/familyandrelationships.family3 (Accessed: 28 May 2016). Bruce, T. (2011) Cultivating creativity: For babies, toddlers and young children. 2nd edn. London: Oxford University Press. Hinsliff, G. (2016) Education needs a Lego moment – more fun and fewer pointless targets. The Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/06/education-lego-let-our-kids-be-kids-protesters-sats> (Accessed: 21 July 2016). How children learn through play (no date) Available at: <http://www.familylives.org.uk/advice/toddler-preschool/learning-play/how-children-learn-through-play/> (Accessed: 24 June 2016). Huizinga, J. (2016) Homo Ludens: A study of the play-element in culture. United States: Angelico Press. Manzoor, S. (2016) Could Steiner schools have a point on children, tablets and tech? The Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/jun/14/steiner-schools-children-tablets-tech> (Accessed: 21 July 2016). Meng, T.K. (2016) Everyone is born creative, but it is educated out of us at school. The Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2016/may/18/born-creative-educated-out-of-us-school-business> (Accessed: 20 June 2016). Oldfield, E. (2015) Playtime is crucial for a child’s development – cut it at your peril. The Guardian. Available at: <http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2015/sep/17/playtime-child-development-learning-cut-at-peril> (Accessed: 28 May 2016). Robertson, S. (2013) How thinking like a child can impact innovation. Available at: <http://www.ideastogo.com/the-science-of-imagination> (Accessed: 21 April 2016). Severance, A.D. (1919) ‘Play in education’, The Lotus Magazine, 10(3), pp. 116–117. doi: 20544087. The Secret Life of 4,5,6 Year Old. 1-7 (2015) Channel 4. [Online] Available at: <http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-secret-life-of-4-5-and-6-year-olds> (Accessed: 3 April 2016) Ward, L. (2016) Children should learn mainly through play until age of eight, says Lego. The Guardian. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/mar/15/children-learn-play-age-eight-lego (Accessed: 21 April 2016). Creating this presentation gave me a clear view on how I need to structure my report. It's my first attempt at using quotes from my readings of how to use them to structure and write my report. It became clear that I'll need to focus on imagination, creativity and play and how all these three work together to help a child develop.
Feedback from the session crucially highlighted that I was talking about imagination and creativity through the lens of play in child development, and that this is the angle i should take my report further. Comments are closed.
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