Setting Up Early Learning Spaces that Inspire Creativity

In early learning classrooms, creative activities offer children more than just fun – they provide rich opportunities for learning and development. Through art, young children express themselves, while also developing physical, cognitive, and social-emotional skills. Thoughtfully-designed early learning spaces, filled with engaging materials and supported by a playful learning curriculum, can spark children’s sense of wonder, and inspire them to create!  

Setting Up Learning Spaces that Inspire Creativity

In early learning classrooms, art centers are the hub of exploration and self-expression. In this article, you’ll find suggestions for making these spaces engaging and inviting, so that they support children’s natural curiosity and invite them to be creative.   

Offer a Wide Variety of Materials  

Incorporating a wide variety of open-ended materials into your classroom will spark children’s natural curiosity and invite them to explore. A mix of standard art supplies, along with natural and found materials will create interest, and encourage children to include a variety of colors, textures, and shapes in their artworks. Following are examples of art materials that promote learning, discovery and creativity:  

• standard art supplies such as markers, crayons, scissors, paints, and glue 
• natural materials such as twigs, leaves, flower petals, and small branches
• found or recycled materials, including pieces of cardboard, wrapping paper scraps, buttons, and popsicle sticks 
• items to make 3-D art projects such as egg cartons, pipe cleaners and uncooked pasta 
• items that invite a variety of sensory experiences, such as stickers, finger paint, washi tape, and clay 
• materials like dot markers and stamps that can be pounded on the paper to relieve stress. 

Incorporate Art Supplies into Different Learning Centers

Art materials do not have to live in only one area of your classroom. Bringing art supplies into different parts of the classroom can expand the opportunities for creative expression. For example, offering art supplies in an outdoor setting can encourage children to get inspired by nature – and maybe to gather natural items to use in their artwork! Or, place some art supplies in your dramatic play area so that children can create props to incorporate into their play. 

You might also pull items from different activity centers to enrich your classroom’s art space, such as magnifying glasses children can use to look closely at their art projects, blocks for stamping or tracing, or books to generate ideas.  

Utilize Inviting Storage 

The way that art supplies are stored in your classroom will have a significant impact on how children engage with the materials. Offer supplies in containers that allow children to see what’s inside, and then invite them to explore and create with the materials that look interesting. Organizing materials by item and placing them at children’s eye level and within reach will make it easy for children to view and access what they are looking for. 

Display Children’s Art Around the Classroom

Children’s completed art projects add color, texture, and interest to the walls of your classroom, and get children excited about creating something new. Displaying children’s art celebrates what they have created, and communicates that their  creativity is a valued part of the classroom. And, children have a chance to feel proud of their own completed projects, while enjoying and being inspired by those of their peers! 

Enjoy the Process

Creative expression is all about the process! This means inviting the children in your care to explore the materials in your art center and use them to create in any way that feels right, without a pre-determined outcome. By emphasizing the process rather than the product, and cultivating spaces that allow children to explore without constraints, educators are tapping into each child’s natural sense of curiosity and creativity.