ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on exploring the meaning of creative approaches, offering a varied creative diet to children and exploration of various creative approaches including creative connections, creative sparks and hooks, role-play and creative dramatics, the project approach, and the use of technology and creative partnerships. The goal of creative approaches is to offer children a 'varied diet', which consists of inputs, processes, and resources provided by the creative adult. Approaches embed children's creative sparks! – sparks are 'things, phenomena, conversations – anything that provokes deeper thought'. Sparks are what trigger a child to want to know more and to investigate it further. In the UK, a creative learning programme took place between 2009 and 2010 in ten early years settings, collaborating with Creative Practitioners. This was the term used to describe the arts and cultural professionals who offered a creative intervention through their relationships with the early years practitioner, teachers, parents, and children.