ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the need to understand children, what and how children learn, creativity as a characteristic of teaching and learning, creating and thinking critically, children's individual approaches to learning and the essential role of play in creative learning. Research the theories relating to children's development and learning. Emerging neuroscience research shows that at birth, babies' brains have around 100 billion neurons but only about a quarter of the connections – these are called synapses – have already been made between them. With peers/colleagues what people all think makes up 'the creative child'. The Early Years Foundation Stage describes creating and thinking critically as when 'children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things'. Every child is a creative child. Creativity is an innate ability in children and is a part of helping them discover and make sense of their world.
