The importance of art and craft in a child’s development stages is more than just fun and games. Studies show that there are different correlations between the arts and crafts that children do at certain ages, their cognitive, social, emotional, creative and physical development as they grow up. In order to understand what those correlations are we must first establish why these skills are important for a child’s growth.
Children learn to correlate their imaginary and real world as creativity helps them to express their imaginations on paper. So arts and crafts is fundamental in A Child’s Development Stages for growth and development. Art not only enhances their creativity but also a source of happiness for them. Art is fundamental for child growth and development. Research has shown that a healthy body definitely has a healthy mind.
Art projects provide relaxation to the child as children are curious by birth and creating new things make them satisfied and keep them physically fit as they get engaged in some healthy exercise. Arts make life more enjoyable and entertaining. Art is important as it preserves our history and culture as It transfers heritage from one generation to another.
Art promotes creativity in children of all ages. Research have proved that young learners who get involved in creating art are four times more likely to be recognized for their achievements in the educational field.
“Art is an effort to create, beside the real world, a more humane world”– Andre Maurois
Art In A Child’s Development Stages In Preschoolers
There are numerous benefits of art and craft activities in the life of a preschooler as they learn new things. They learn to hold pencils, they learn to draw shapes, they learn to paint and color. When they create something with their own hands it helps to increase their knowledge about the things. Art projects help preschoolers to get ready for their school life and prepare them physically and mentally. Teachers should plan some healthy art projects for their students as they are important to nourish their body and soul.
Preschoolers
There are lots of benefits of arts some of them are listed below:
- Arts help to develop soft skills in preschoolers. They learn to hold a pencil with the help of their thumbs and fingers.
- Art is important as it introduces children to history. Art shows the cultures, traditions of the forefathers.
- Arts promote creativity and teach children to express their feelings and emotion through art.
- When children draw shapes they use mathematical calculations and follow symmetrical patterns that help to improve their math.
- Art is important as it boosts self confidence in children as they express their feelings more openly through art work so they do not remain shy and become more socialized.
Benefits Of Art In Student Development
What is development in the real sense? The word development has very vast meanings; it represents all the physical, mental, social changes in a child. Development is a dynamic process as it involves a change from one condition to another; it is not static. Art activities are very beneficial for students as they are important for their development.
Physical Development
Arts and crafts is cutting off from the school curriculum but it is an important investment in the growth of students. There are a number of benefits of art projects in a student life. Art is not mere painting, drawing and colouring with crayons or making origami with papers. It is much more than that.
Motor Skills
Arts help to improve motor skills in students as they use their hands, fingers and thief body muscles to create something new and interesting. They hold pencils, crayons and paint brushes that improve control on their muscles. They learn to hold scissors when they have to cut something. So art activities develop fine motor skills.
Increase their Speed
As it is the most famous adaj that “ Practice makes a man perfect”. Arts projects demand practice as it is not possible for the beginners to create something perfect in their first attempt. They have to practice it again and again to achieve perfection. Hence by practicing again and again their speed of writing, colouring or painting increases day by day. They become more agile and more perfect.
Improves Muscles Coordination
Art work demands mind and body coordination. Our mind thinks and transmits signals to the muscle that moves in the required direction.
They learn to coordinate their large and small muscles through these hand on activities. Their muscles and eye coordination also improves through the art activities. So these art activities should be planned weekly to enhance student physical development. Researchers have proven that art improves learning and makes the brain more powerful and healthier.
Mental Development
Art and craft projects help in mental and cognitive development of children as young students learn the name of colors, name of shapes through these art activities. These hands- on activities improve their learning.
When they draw a painting of a natural scene they become more observant as they have to portray these scenes. They have to keenly observe the style and shapes of leaves, their colors and the background where the tree is standing. All these things required a deep perception of the real life scent. Hence it is right to say that art and craft activities make children more observant and they see details of things more accurately.
These observational skills help to improve science learning as the scientific knowledge demands observation of natural phenomena, and art and craft activities empowers the imaginations and make children more observant.
Social Development
When children work on a big project they require a team that can help them to organize and arrange art projects.so they learn to cooperate, share their things with their fellows. They learn to interact with others in a more healthy way.
They learn to help others and take help in doing something big. All of this is important for children’s social development.
Why Does Art Help In Science?
Art is a broad concept and is very much important for the development of children. Art and science requires creativity, observations and experimentation. It is the fact that children easily grasp a concept when they learn it through their five senses. Artwork requires coordination of all these senses, the same in the case of learning science concepts.
Art and science look like opposite disciplines but they have many things in common.
Importance Of Art For Experimentation
Art demands experimentation. To create something new one has to pass through experimentation hence children learn to experiment to create a new thing. This is very important for their science learning.
The new techniques in arts are a result of experimentation, as artists use different techniques to present their imagination on canvas.
Observation
When children create something they have to observe the surroundings the same in the case of scientific facts. To learn scientific facts one has to observe nature. Scientists as well as artists are keen observers of nature.
Art improves children’s observation; they see things more clearly as they have to portray them through their artwork.
Evidence About The Importance Of Arts
We can see remarkable change in the school curriculum in the last few years as teachers lose interest in art activities and they consider them as entertainment activities and good for spending time.
But recent reports unveil the truth as the children that are studying through activities are more energetic, give answers to complicated questions more promptly and are well mannered, arec not short tempered as art and craft activities teach them to tolerate failure with courage and face the world without fears.
On the other hand, children that are studying in those schools do not give importance to art and craft activities and they arrange these activities annually. The students here were disciplined but shy and were not ready to express their feelings and emotions. They are short tempered and more aggressive as they cannot spend time in creating something new.
Why Does Art Help In Mathematics?
Mathematics and art are interrelated in a variety of ways. As we know that both mathematics and art are totally different discipl;enes one requires accurate calculations while the other is imaginary. We can say that these subjects are like two roads having different endings, yet they are interrelated as there are certain things that are common in them.
Recognition of Patterns
When we draw or paint something we have to acknowledge the length of different lines, and we have to follow a pattern when creating something new. So work of art demands calculations for an accurate product.from where these symmetries and patterns comes from? Obviously they are a part of mathematics. In math we are required to measure the length of different geometrical shapes.
Arts Influenced By Mathematical Shapes
There are many artists who were inspired by mathematical shapes and present these shapes in their art work. Some of them are listed below with their artwork.
Swing Landscapes By Stuart Devis
Staurt Devis swing landscape is displayed in Whitney Museum of American art, he created this masterpiece in 1938. He was inspired by shapes in the swings landscape; he presented a village with lots of different shapes.
Do you see the patterns and different shapes in this piece of art? Stuart Devis presented math in an artwork.
The Three Musicians By Pablo Picasso
Pablo picasso painted three musician in 1923 in which he presented different abstract shapes
He showcased three musicians one with guitar, other with music notes in hand that are written on paper the last one is a clarinet player.
The artist shows his association toward mathematical shapes. Pablo Picasso often uses polygon shapes to present people and places. This painting presents three characters and all of them are created by applying mathematical shapes.
How many rectangles, lines and circles are there in this painting? They are numerous.
A City by Carmen Herrera
Carmen Herrera made this painting in 1938, she was inspired by the shapes she saw around her that she presented in her painting.
She presented math in her art work, you can see shapes of different sizes in that figure. It is a city. Can you see a city in it?, as Aristotle once said that “ the aim of art is not to represent the outward appearance of things but their inward significance”.
Lobster Trap And Fish Tail By Alexander Cardel
This is another artwork that clearly represents the interrelation of art with mathematical shapes. This artifact won international recognition and fame to its artist Alexander. It is displayed in the Museum of Modern Art in Newyork city.
Do you see mathematical shapes and lines in it? Does it have any connection to mathematical figures and shapes?
Wires Sculptures By Ruth
Ruth Asawa presented structures through her sculptures as she one said, “My curiosity was aroused by the idea of giving structural form to the images in my drawings. These forms come from observing plants, the spiral shell of a snail, seeing light through insect wings, watching spiders repair their webs in the early morning, and seeing the sun through the droplets of water suspended from the tips of pine needles while watering my garden.”
She presented symmetrical wires in her sculptures.
Ruth Assava explains her sculptures as three dimensional line drawing in space.
I would like to conclude that art has the power to transform and can develop and change human outlook. It improves personal growth as an artist can express his emotions more accurately and in a more acceptable way then communicating it through the language.
Research has proved that art improves the neural system as well as enhances brain function.
Art is good for the wellbeing of a person.
“The art of healing comes from nature, not from the physician. Therefore the physician must start from nature, with an open mind.”
– Paracelsus
Artists have to think more when they create something. They have to convert his ideas in figure so the brain needs more energy to work so blood circulation toward the brain increases.
Artists are healthier than a normal human being.
As “ Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life”– Pablo Picasso
Artists consider art an important thing for their life, something like breathing, eating and engaging in physical exercise.
Conclusion
In this article, we have looked at how art and craft in a child’s development stages is more than just fun and games. We found that there are different correlations between the arts and crafts that children do at certain ages and their cognitive, social, emotional, creative, or physical development as they grow up. These correlations can be seen with things like reading comprehension rates (higher correlation), creativity (lower correlation), health benefits (stronger correlation) and even obesity levels (negative correlation). Now you know what to expect from your little one based on which type of project they’re working on!
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