Creative Activity for Young Children

The right brain is a such a fantastic area of our human anatomy,we all know how the different sides of our brains control the many wonderful things that can be done. Based on right brain research, it is best to stretched the capacity of the right brain function as far as we can before the left brain activities kicks in.  The right brain has no limit to learning capacity and holds the creative juices for innovation and creative solutions. It is important that mothers think of a lot of art projects for toddlers and best to start them young, as a full time working mom I only have the weekends to work these creative activities for toddlers and perhaps 30mins during the week day, better not to get the kid too excited before bedtime.

My bubs started her hands at art when she was about 11 months old, I started out with handmade paints and attempted finger painting, so sorry that I did not document it..DUH! slap to the head again. It went well but my little kiddo was not too interested in pasting her palms unto white paper. Anyhow for mummies who are interested to make their own finger paints just follow this easy breezy recipe below.

3 tbs sugar
Half tbs of salt
Half cup of cornstarch
2 Cups of water

Combine all ingredients un a small sauce pan. Warm until mixture thickens. Cool and pour in glass containers. Add food colouring to create colour and you will have jars of lovely colours all ready to be splashed about.  

I suggest to start finger painting when your bubs is about 8 to 9 months old but every baby is different so by all means do start  them younger if you wish and if you feel like splashing some colours about! Cornstarch can be substituted with plain yogurt as well, just in case you have an adventurous food tester as your kiddo.

Play dough for toddler is fun too. My bubs at 16 months enjoys her dough, although still unable to make definite shapes she enjoy just pressing, pulling and pinching them into pieces. I use the type from ELC according to age type which is 18 months and above. I notice the texture is harder compared to the Play-Doh which is suitable for younger children. ELC play dough comes with shapers at the bottom of the container and they have some nice yummy colours. The point is to get your bubs to use their imagination to form shapes, it will really help if you start working out nice shapes with your kiddo and hopefully they get interested to see how it is done. My little girl at the moment is more interested in tearing up what I create to her amusement. Do have a close watch when your little toddler gets excited during such  creative activities as they might be interested to taste it as well! Hence why some mothers prefer to make their own play dough.  Creative activity for young children brings on experiential learning which is essential in the early building blocks of imagination and creative thinking. Actually the mama and papa also had a lot of fun making things out of these soft dough as it bring back child hood memories. 

We spent about 1 hour with the dough, kneading and shaping with my little bubs mimicking our action which is fantastic because learning also starts from modelling. Monkey see monkey do sounds fun here.  We used the shaper at the bottom to cut out shapes of flower, house and cars all objects which are familiar to her both sounds and shapes so seeing it being created out of coloured dough is certainly interesting for a curious toddler mind. We also made bangles and she slipped in some on her own  which was a really funny scene. It is amazing how these creative activities for toddlers actually bring out their sensory and memory skills. As you can see my bubs was a little bit tired after all that finger gymnastics! She decided to take a rest on the mattress .  I have a list of creative material in my stash from crayons to colour pencils. All you need is some space and lots of white mahjong paper and let your little darling take on the floor! Next will be water colour so watch this space mummies and daddies!