Creative Play for kids
We're all about how creative play can benefit your child in the long run. But what exactly is creative play? Creative play is all about children learning to express themselves whilst developing skills to prepare them for the real world.
Here are our 5 long term benefits of creative play with play ideas!
Sometimes all you want to do is give your child a toy to keep them entertained whilst you have some much needed relaxation time, but that doesnât mean you arenât still helping them! Independence is a benefit that comes with creative play alongside many more. We put together a list of the five most important benefits that creative play offers!
1. Creative play helps with emotional development!
Emotional development can happen through creative play as a lot of the time children will create a space to express themselves and explore a range of emotions. During creative activities like role playing, they will learn the right way to respond to dilemmas and it can also help them develop empathy for others! Creative play allows children to understand their emotions and work through them. During arts and crafts time children may become frustrated with how their creation turns out so they will try and fix this by figuring out how they can make it better! We like to turn our Capikooa balance board into an arts and crafts table and the kids have endless fun creating their own masterpieces! We have a DIY paint recipe over on our instagram for you and your family to try yourselves! Why not give it a go next time youâre feeling creative?
2. Social skills are also a benefit of creative play
Creative play and social development often go hand in hand! When children play creatively with one another, it encourages important life skills such as how to communicate, socialise, and improve their language skills. Creative activities where children talk to each other to solve problems are great for building their confidence and self esteem which prepares them to take on the real world! A fun way to encourage these skills would be to create a performance! This could be singing, dancing, a re-enactment of their favourite show or film, or anything they can think of! You could use the Capikooa balance board as a stage for this, or maybe as a prop for their play? The Capikooa balance boards are made to be powered by your childâs imagination!
3. How creative play helps with intellectual development
One of the best ways children learn is through creative play! You never have to feel guilty about letting your children play all day on the weekend because as long as theyâre being creative and using their imaginations to express themselves, it can help develop their intelligence. Creative play allows children to solve problems, find answers, and use logic. One fun play idea we love to do to get them thinking and moving is playing games that require imagination and creativity. For example, we like to use our Capikooa balance boards to play âthis isnât a balance board, itâs a âŠâ to play this game you will need an open-ended toy such as the Capikooa balance board and at least one very creative child! You and your children will each take turns turning the balance board into something from your imagination! One example might be to say âthis isnât a balance board, itâs a boat!â and pretend to be in a boat. This fun activity encourages creativity, thinking skills, and gross motor skills too! Speaking of motor skills...
4. Did you know that creative play helps with the development of fine motor skills?
Fine motor skills involve the little muscles in the body such as those in the hands and wrist. These muscles are important when it comes to childrenâs ability to write, draw, hold onto objects, and much more! Creative play helps children develop these skills and boosts their physical development. Whether they are holding onto their toys, painting a picture, or writing a fairytale story, theyâre being creative and itâs helping their development. Motor skills are an important part of a childâs development as children learn with their bodies before their brains! A fun play idea to help with fine motor skill development is to play the balloon game! To play this you will need to blow up a balloon and watch your children use their gross and fine motor muscles to hit the balloon in the air and prevent it from hitting the ground. The aim of the game is to see who can keep the balloon in the air the longest. For an extra challenge you can set a rule where they canât move from their Capikooa balance board throughout the game!
Also, if you would like to learn more about gross motor skills then check out our Creative Ideas post as we talked all about it over there.
5. Creative play helps children concentrate!
Our fifth and final benefit is all about concentration. Have you ever wondered how to build your childâs concentration? Well keep reading to find out how creative play can help! Concentration is a much needed skill for children to get through life, as you already know. So where does creative play come into it? Giving children a fun and exciting task will combine happiness and learning together. The creative part of a challenging task can motivate them to complete it and to do that they need to concentrate! One of our favourite ways to improve concentration is to set up some small world play which allows them to focus on creating a fantasy world. To do this we use our Capikooa balance board as a foundation and then use whichever toys and figures they want! If you need some inspiration on how to do this then no worries! Head over to our Instagram to find our dinosaur day reel which shows you how to set up a creative play space.
Hopefully you found some new and creative ideas for you to enjoy with your family! We love creative play and the many long term benefits it offers. We hope you enjoyed reading about them too and hopefully you learned something new! For more inspiration visit our Instagram where we upload weekly reels packed full of creative play ideas! @capikooa
Check out our other post here
