How to help kids make use of free digital material to spur creativity

Creativity is described as the tendency to recognize or generate ideas or possibilities that may be useful in communicating with people, entertaining ourselves, problem-solving, and so on. So creativity is the type of rational thinking which offers multiple solutions to a problem for your children.

Creativity is important for your child’s development, as it helps in the development of many skills like communication, fluency, ability to produce ideas, originality, flexibility, to think out of the box, to be unique and one of a kind et cetera. Apart from these, creativity is also essential in a child’s cognitive development. As it promotes joy and understanding, motivates children to pursue goals, allows children to connect disciplines and ideas which enhance their learning experiences.

Therefore, creativity is an essential skill that every child needs, and there can be no better way to develop such a necessary skill than to use what more or less, all kids love- technology and digital material.

We mostly look at technology or digital platforms as something that is a necessary evil. We know it is important, but we also try to minimize its usage as much as possible. The vast majority of parents are concerned about their children using interactive learning, e-books, video logs, and so on. While we all understand the importance of having limited screen times for kids, we need to stop this outlook of seeing computers and machines as bad, but rather as new mediums for creativity.

According to a recent study on Digital creativity, which explores how technology helps develop creativity in children’s early learning environments, it was found that the proper integration of technology in the learning environment gives children the opportunity to develop social interactions and collaborations.

Though it is common knowledge that online Internet education is highly interactive, and how children can be taught virtually are limitless, how many of us use free digital material to spur children’s creativity? For example, when teachers use virtual tools like graphics, videos, or PPT to explain a particular topic, children get a better understanding of the topic and are more focused and interested than usual. We can use this same virtual digital material for our children’s creative exploitations, we will look at the many ways in this blog.

1.Digital storytelling:

Stories have always been used to convey knowledge and information in a way that makes them easy to understand and internalize throughout the centuries. It can improve children’s creative skills and help them explore their own experiences and works. For this, there are several tools to help children create their own digital stories, for example

• Side story: This allows you to combine picture slideshows with voice narration.
• Storybird- anyone can make visual stories using this tool in minutes the tool curated artwork from illustrators and animators from around the world to inspire writers of any age to turn those images into fresh stories.
• Bubblr: A tool to create comic strips using photos.
• Comic Master: This tool allows you to create your own short graphic novels.
• PicLits: This is a creative platform that matches beautiful imagery with carefully selected keywords to inspire young minds.
• MapSkip: allows you to create a weave of stories about the places in your lives.

2.Blogs for creative thinking:

Blogs are an excellent tool for children to develop their creative thinking skills, which allows learners to post whatever they want, to share their material, and comment on other young learners’ materials as well. It serves as a platform where topics can be discussed openly and provides a space to vent and discuss interests without worrying about grading and judgments.

3. Art and Craft: 

There are N number of digital materials available to spur arts and crafts genius in children. 

For Examples:

• Crayola: This has videos and instructions for projects for kids to do at home.
• Jumpstart: They have lesson plans on teaching color to little children.
• HGTV: Provides instructions to make clay sculptures. 
• Incredible: The site has a long list of online games for age kids.
• Scrapcoloring: This is a digital coloring book where kids can explore colors and patterns.

4. Music tools:

During times like these, where children could lose touch without effective practice on their musical talents, these online platforms come as a saving grace, where at the safety of your homes, without any external help, kids can learn and develop their musical abilities.

• PBS Kids: It has games and activities. 
• Nick, Jr: It has preschool maker games.
• Chrome Lab: This lets children explore musical sounds and concepts.
• Kids Guitar Zone: It offers free beginner lessons in Guitar.
• Piano Patch Kids: It has free downloadable piano lessons to teach your child to play the piano.
• Violin Online: It offers free sheet and beginner violin lessons. 
• Creating: It lets kids create and listen to their own musical masterpieces.
• Philharmonic: It has a kid zone with concert videos, games, puzzles, and instructions for making instruments.

5.Dance:

Dancing can be a means to stay fit for children of all age groups. It has a broad range of physical and psychological benefits including the improved condition of the heart and lungs. Where physical classes are not an option, you can opt for these instead:

• Kennedy Center: This offers kids’ activities and lessons on, dance, performing arts, and more.
• Debbie Allen: It teaches dance classes on Instagram live.  
• The Ballet is a channel that streams live classes for ballet students of all ages. 

6. History and culture:

• Ducksters teach children about artists and .
• The Smithsonian offers kids, the oral histories of jazz. 
• San Francisco Museum of Modern has guides and discussion questions for many pieces available for kids.

7.Videos, games, puzzles, and Animation:

• Toy Theatreprovides virtual tools to build, create, and animate.  
• National Gallery of Art has lessons, online courses, videos, films, and activities for all ages.
• Pixar in a Box offers behind-the-scenes looks at animation.

With the Covid-19 pandemic, people all over the world have understood the importance and relevance of digital tools. It is also important for us to acknowledge the reason that children are more attracted to digital material than just books. The majority of the material we see online, be it video games, DIY videos, or any child activity videos, we can see that have a lot of thought and creativity poured into them to make them as engaging, artistic, and exciting as possible for the children, to encourage young minds to bring out their own artistic sense and express themselves in ways that they cannot think of otherwise. 

At Sherwood High, we believe that creativity is an attribute that must be established by children from the early stages of their lives. Parents alongside our teachers must expose children to activities and practices where they can exercise their skills and whet their creativity. Beyond these exercises, children must also learn to use available digital materials to stimulate creativity.