Creativity as a “Journey in Pandemic Times”

Creativity happens anywhere, in any way. It is an explosion!

Creativity, as an essential formative value, occupies an important place in the development of the child’s personality. Play and learning offer the child many occasions to shape and elaborate the information he has, to build the real out of his own images.

The creative person is characterized by originality and expressiveness, and is imaginative, generative, a trailblazer, inventive, innovative, inwardly free, unusual, unique.

In the context of the spread of the coronavirus and the movement restrictions imposed, the games and activities that children carried out mostly outdoors, expressing pure and utter joy for everything that outdoor fun represents, moved indoors. It is a real challenge for all children, regardless of individuality, to play in one particular space, always the same, for a long period, so that their creativity is not affected.

The little dragon of banality fought against boredom at home.

Busy in the kitchen with mommy!

How can creativity be stimulated when games with a creative flavor take place exclusively inside the home or, rarely, in its vicinity? What solutions can be found so that the child’s creative spirit is not lost or does not stray among the walls of the house and become touched by flatness?

Such solutions were found by the children, who chose to respond creatively to the challenge of staying indoors for a long period. They chose to win against the “little dragon of banality,” which had sprinkled on its little wings (also) anger, helplessness, frustration, exasperation, but also hope, optimism, confidence, courage and drops of creativity, and, managing to get out of the “trap of the ordinary,” to organize varied activities, some created from “nothing,” others from elements easily found in the house, so that time would have a different meaning.

The creative activities carried out by the children are a true source of inspiration for all of us who spend time inside. The creativity and happiness in the children’s games can be transferred, and then the principle of reciprocity applied to create memorable moments and give isolation a different note.

Often, children are among the inspired ones who find original ways to turn routine in an enclosed space into a real innovation. Where does the thirst for exploring creativity down to the smallest molecule spring from? Where do children find the inexhaustible resources to bring forth captivating things?

Stories and creative games of the Covid-19 era imagined by the children.

Whoosh! We do experiments with care at home

An attractive activity in the form of sensory play that brings joy to the children’s faces is the foam created from something very close at hand – soap, which is used for daily hygiene, takes on the usefulness of a “toy,” which the child turns into an original spectacle.

The “art of happiness” can be felt and achieved with easily obtained materials – watercolors – and it takes a free-creative spirit to give free rein to the imagination and to have the boldness to give a banal object with a different use a special shine, while also adding elements that inspire at the moment of creation, which they would never want to lose.

Children can become true builders, architects, and make projections outside the mold, forging the house of their dreams in which their favorite characters play the main role, or setting out on urban explorations, where they can visualize avant-garde constructions, activating their senses and going beyond every limit.

Creativity can also be stimulated by the stories the children have listened to, identified with certain characters, and visualized certain places through a particular aesthetic sense; born with imagination, the home in which children are isolated can become a shelter for the friends from the stories and not only. Everything is one step away from creativity.

Experimenting with culinary recipes in each child’s kitchen is a satisfaction for the whole family, especially when the menu is created by the children. When children engage in role-play, they actively experience the social and emotional roles of life. When they get involved in games of the imagination, a seemingly simplistic game takes on a special form, thanks to the children’s endless creativity.

An improvised space with sand in the home can be an excellent play environment for siblings too. Together it is easier to get through the imposed isolation, playing and imagining, sprinkling in emotions, life stories felt and told by the innocent soul of children.

How creative is a child during the pandemic?

Fun with bubbles at home Anything in the house can be a rich source of fun We give free rein to imagination through painting

Play and movement must not be missing in times of isolation, and they can be creatively intertwined in an enclosed space by setting up a tunnel in the middle of the carpet at home. Even a small portion of the home’s interior space can be a rich resource for play, especially if creativity is driven in various ways.

Ingredients from the house, used in various ordinary preparations, can stir up volcanic reactions just by mixing them. Did you think that pepper + mineral water + dark flour + ice cubes + drops of lemon + as much inventiveness as can fit could create such effervescence? A child’s mind proves that it can!

Creativity can go beyond the walls of the home and take on another value. Attention to the hardworking insects must not be forgotten and can take place in different ways. We can “practice” care for the little and seemingly insignificant in an unusual way from early childhood.

Colors are radiant energies that influence us positively or negatively, whether or not we realize it. Painting regarded as abstract can take on a creative form and go beyond the perimeter of the room, of solitude, sending our thoughts to a future museum.

Imagination and nature are the friends of all children.

Wow, an impressive drawing made with joy Toys, sand and lots and lots of play! Handicrafts and creativity

Gathered from the seashore, perhaps during vacations, in days long gone, to which we often flee in thought, seashells can become true pearls of creativity thanks to the colors applied by delicate little hands and the creative eye for ideas of the child in isolation.

Viewed holistically, activities that involve care for everything the universe means must not be left in the background or forgotten in pandemic times. We can be a support for nature from within and also positive examples for children, helping them show love and sensitivity and learn to creatively recycle common materials from inside the home. A first-rate game can result, and the positive effect on the environment can be amplified as well.

Regardless of the form of creativity expressed, children must be encouraged to have different pursuits while staying at home, first of all so as not to forget to express their basic emotions in varied situations, to use elements of active listening, to explore their abilities to relate to others – games played with parents can support them in this – or to have a daily schedule of heterogeneous activities with the support of adults to drive away the clouds of boredom, so that all the activities, if correctly planned and carried out, lead to the preconditions for the imaginative act.

We make friends with the little bees We get our little hands dirty to be artists We make the little houses and paint them with gusto

Special thanks for the creative enthusiasm,

To the children of the “Fluturași” group, class of 2019-2020

An article by Virginia Nistor, preschool teacher, “Fluturași” group