KidzArt Official Blog

An article in this week’s Franchise Times sites a recent study by Franchise Business Review that says child services franchises are “one of the hottest sectors for franchising”. Continued growth is expected in franchise companies that are aimed at children, such as after-school programs, childcare, tutoring and other niche services.

The study notes that “regardless of population growth, parents continue to seek new options to stimulate and educate their children—be it through daycare or afterschool programs, toy stores, or special events.”

At KidzArt we  know that parents are looking for programs for children that enhance their academic, extracurricular or athletic experiences. Due to budgets cuts in school and community curriculum, quality parent paid programs are in demand.

As parents are spending more time, money, and resources on improving the quality of their children’s lives, KidzArt will continue to provide art education services that nurture children’s creativity and artistic expression.

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As the parent or teacher of young children, it’s important to recognize how children learn and the steps they go through in their development. The following information, taken from the US Department of Education web site, offers ideas and activities which will enable him/her to learn, grow and have fun- while building fine motor skills! Check out these great ideas for “constructive play” and share yours too!

Toddlers can use their hands and fingers to play with toys and to do many things for themselves.
• Keep toys on low, open shelves so that toddlers can choose what they want to play with and put things away when done. Put things that are used together near each other. For example, put crayons on the same shelf as the paper.
• Encourage toddlers to help take care of their toys and to keep the child care setting tidy. Have several clean-up times each day. Provide toddler-size cleaning tools, such as small brooms and dust- pans.
• Follow a schedule that gives toddlers plenty of time to take part in routines such as eating, handwashing, and getting ready to go outdoors. Make it easy for toddlers to do things without your help:
 Place cubbies and coat hooks at toddlers’ height and show them how to hang up their coats.
 Provide cups and eating utensils small enough to fit in toddlers’ hands.
 Mark each toothbrush with a special symbol–a star, an X, a dot–so children can know which toothbrush is theirs.
 Place tissues and paper towels where toddlers can reach them.
• Provide an assortment of table toys and materials that encourage toddlers to use their hands and fingers, such as pegs to place in pegboards and blocks to stack and then knock down. These items must be large enough so that toddlers won’t choke on them.
• Offer new materials as toddlers’ skills improve. Older toddlers can build eye-hand coordination while doing puzzles with more pieces and while fitting small blocks together. They may be ready to use a sifter in the sand box and small boats at a water play table.
Toddlers can use a variety of drawing and writing tools.
• Provide many things to draw and write with and on. Store crayons, washable markers, and chalk where toddlers can get them without help from an adult. Large paper is best for toddlers’ drawing and writing because toddlers need space to make wide movements with their arms. For variety, toddlers can draw and write on chalkboards and on the sidewalk.
• Set up easels, washable paint in a few colors, and brushes with short handles and wide bristles for toddlers to use every day.
• Encourage toddlers to use their fingers to make wavy lines and circles with fingerpaint on trays or a plastic tablecloth.
Toddlers are beginning to notice letters and writing.
• Introduce letters in a casual way. Provide some alphabet blocks, puzzles, stamps, and magnets for toddlers to play with.
• Let toddlers see you writing. Sit down with a toddler while making a shopping list, talk about the sign you are making, and explain what’s in the note you are sending home to families. Toddlers are likely to copy your writing in the same way they copy other adult activities.

Source: http://www2.ed.gov/Family/RSRforCaregvr/toddlers.html

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The Creativity Crisis
Jul 10, 2010 4:00 AM EDT
For the first time, research shows that American creativity is declining. What went wrong—and how we can fix it.

Below, excerpts from Creative Crisis as reported by www.thedailybeast.com. I found this to be thought provoking. You can read the article at http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/07/10/the-creativity-crisis.html

Back in 1958, Ted Schwarzrock was an 8-year-old third grader when he became one of the “Torrance kids,” a group of nearly 400 Minneapolis children who completed a series of creativity tasks newly designed by professor E. Paul Torrance. Schwarzrock still vividly remembers the moment when a psychologist handed him a fire truck and asked, “How could you improve this toy to make it better and more fun to play with?” He recalls the psychologist being excited by his answers. In fact, the psychologist’s session notes indicate Schwarzrock rattled off 25 improvements, such as adding a removable ladder and springs to the wheels.

It’s too early to determine conclusively why U.S. creativity scores are declining. One likely culprit is the number of hours kids now spend in front of the TV and playing videogames rather than engaging in creative activities. Another is the lack of creativity development in our schools. In effect, it’s left to the luck of the draw who becomes creative: there’s no concerted effort to nurture the creativity of all children.

Around the world, though, other countries are making creativity development a national priority. In 2008 British secondary-school curricula—from science to foreign language—was revamped to emphasize idea generation, and pilot programs have begun using Torrance’s test to assess their progress. The European Union designated 2009 as the European Year of Creativity and Innovation, holding conferences on the neuroscience of creativity, financing teacher training, and instituting problem-based learning programs—curricula driven by real-world inquiry—for both children and adults. In China there has been widespread education reform to extinguish the drill-and-kill teaching style. Instead, Chinese schools are also adopting a problem-based learning approach.

Preschool children, on average, ask their parents about 100 questions a day. Why, why, why—sometimes parents just wish it’d stop. Tragically, it does stop. By middle school they’ve pretty much stopped asking. It’s no coincidence that this same time is when student motivation and engagement plummet. They didn’t stop asking questions because they lost interest: it’s the other way around. They lost interest because they stopped asking questions.
Creativity has always been prized in American society, but it’s never really been understood. While our creativity scores decline unchecked, the current national strategy for creativity consists of little more than praying for a Greek muse to drop by our houses.

How do we bring back creativity? Share your thoughts?

KidzArt/Art Innovators suggest that you BRING BACK CREATIVITY!

Five New Ways
Collect everyday household items in a bag. Pull out one item and see if your family or group can make up 5 new ways to use it. They can be funny or impractical like using a funnell as a hat

Dream Journal
Purchase hard bound art journal with blank paper. Write down your dreams in permanent ink. Paint over the writing in watercolor. On a separate page, illustrate one of the dreams.

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