Don’t Trivialize Arts & Crafts

by Kem Clark

Arts & Crafts activities aren’t just busy work! They are an amazing contributor to childhood development … and not just fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination, but cognitive functions as well.

Letting children create freely uses their active imaginations productively, and shows them that there is no right or wrong way to be creative. And that helps build self-esteem and confidence in newly developing skills. They also develop visual processing skills when recognizing colors, shapes and patterns.

It doesn’t mean that each child is going to grow up to be Van Gogh or Andy Warhol, but that the creative side can grow and develop and be productive in myriad ways, including the design and implementation of software, or creating gardens and landscape settings …or designing airplanes!

The cognitive functions that benefit from Arts & Crafts activities include focus and attention to the activity … planning and organizing the project, determining what artistic materials will be needed … and then problem solving when facing artistic challenges – how to make it look like what you want it to.

Wikki Stix provide all of these elements, in a very friendly and forgiving way. Since they are so easy to peel up to change and re-create … there are no mistakes! And no tears! Just lots of fun and a sense of achievement!