According to psychologist Alan Bowd of Canada’s Lakehead University, children need to foster thinking skills such as these to encourage creativity:
- Fluency -- produce many responses to an open-ended question or problem.
- Flexibility -- generate unconventional ideas and view situations from different perspectives.
- Originality -- produce unique, unusual, or novel responses.
- Elaboration -- add rich detail to ideas.
- Visualization -- imagine and mentally manipulate images and ideas.
- Transformation -- change one thing or idea into another to see new meanings, applications, and implications.
- Synthesis -- combine parts into a coherent whole.
In a mentally playful environment, loose parts are the key for creative play. With them, children learn to construct, take turns, knock down, plan and start all over again.
Bring out those safe, durable and functional loose parts, send a message that they are able to make choices and take risks.
Learning should be FUN!
FUNtastic!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
ReplyDeleteWow, really impressed with your blog, so glad to have found it via Facebook :)
ReplyDeleteSo happy I found you! Kindred spirits! May I ask where you found the colorful cylinders?
ReplyDeleteMaria, I'm a huge proponent of loose parts too! I just built a make-shift light table, and I'm excited to see what we can do with it. Where did you find those lovely colorful translucent pieces?
ReplyDelete@ tinkerlab, I found them at the dollar store.
ReplyDeleteI think you've created an atmosphere for magic as well... :)
ReplyDeleteBrilliant!!!
ReplyDeleteOn so many levels!!!
Maria, did you mention before where you purchased the acrylic tile samples? I had it bookmarked but IT came and reformatted my computer and I lost a lot of good stuff.
ReplyDeleteHello
ReplyDeleteDo you mind sharing with me the name of Alan Bowd's book from where the reference was taken? I would like to read the book. I have research it but I couldn't find it. Thank you !