Are the crafts your child creates in daycare just cute projects to hang on the fridge - or are they more? If your child is an avid artist and enjoys everything from finger paint and clay to crayons, take a look at the developmental benefits early childhood arts and crafts projects provide and how these activities can help your child learn and grow.

Fine Motor Development

This type of motor skill includes the use of small muscles in the hands and wrists. Dexterity, eye-hand coordination, and hand/finger muscle control are fine motor skills your preschool-aged child is currently building. Fine motor skills are necessary to engage in activities of daily life, such as eating, dressing, or using the restroom.

These skills also make it possible for your child to grow as a student. Without fine motor abilities, your child wouldn't have the ability to hold a pencil and write their name, type on a computer, or cut with scissors. How did the cute collage or pretty painted picture your child made at daycare help them develop fine motor skills? Art can improve fine motor development in several ways, such as:

Small muscle control. When your child holds a crayon to draw lines or uses safety scissors to cut a piece of paper, they're building hand and finger muscle control.

Different types of movements. Your child's hands and fingers don't only move in one way. Art can help your child explore different ways to grasp and hold art tools (such as a paintbrush or marker). Eye-hand coordination. It takes a level of eye-hand coordination to draw shapes, paint on paper, sculpt with clay, or cut with scissors. The more your child creates art or crafts, the more practice they'll get coordinating eye and hand movements.

The greater variety of arts-and-crafts projects your child tries, the more fine motor skills they'll have the opportunity to build. Think about the ways your child uses their fingers, hands, and wrists to draw versus how they finger paint. You'll see how an array of art activities can improve the different types of fine motor abilities your child will use right now and for years to come.

Cultural Sensitivity and Awareness Development

Physical skills aren't the only abilities your child develops in the preschool years. As they grow, your child needs to understand the world around them. This includes other people and other cultures. Arts-and-crafts activities provide the perfect opportunity for the young child to explore their culture and other cultures in an age-appropriate, concrete way.

How can daycare-based art activities help your young child learn about other cultures? Some of the ways these projects can tackle questions about cultures and help children develop cultural awareness and sensitivity include:

World art. Your child may not only create art. They may also learn about or view art other people create. The opportunity to see and experience art from other areas of the word can help young children better understand other cultures outside of their own.

Diversity in subjects. People don't all look the same. Your child can use their own art to explore this idea - and to learn more about who they are. Preschool portrait projects and similar art activities can help children better understand that people are different.

Identity development. Art activities can help the young child discover who they are and feel pride in themselves and their culture. A rainbow palette of paint or box of crayons can help preschoolers create art that reflects who they see themselves as and learn more about their identity.



Diversity and identity go hand-and-hand in the development of cultural awareness. As your child explores arts and crafts activities that focus on cultural or identity concepts, they can begin to understand themselves, their community, and the world around them in different ways.

Is your child ready to start preschool? Contact Small World Early Learning and Development Centers for more information.