Credit: Zaidee Stavely/EdSource
Singing the ABC song. Learning the days of the week from a nursery rhyme. Making a finger-painted collage of little handprints.
Arts education has always been center stage in early education because little children are naturally creative, filled with wonder and the burning desire to express themselves. Arts and crafts not only help nurture a child’s natural imagination, they also boost small motor skills, sharpen hand-eye coordination and feed the insatiable need to play.
“Children don’t just play, they learn fundamental skills through play,” said Daniel Mendoza, a Sacramento-based visual artist and specialist in early childhood education art practices. “Children are in a creative mindset all the time.”
While this may well be as true for teenagers as it is for toddlers, there is far more time and space allotted for playfulness in the early grades, when the…
