Process or Product? The Argument for Aesthetic Exploration in the Early Years

摘要

Early childhood educators often deliberate the difference between the use of arts versus crafts in the classroom as learning opportunities. This paper discusses the distinct differences between the two and how encouraging young children to engage within art making provides great opportunity for personal and communal exploration, expression, and discussion. Open-ended activities that focus on the process, and not necessarily the end product, provide children with authentic, differentiated, and holistic methods of exploration and learning. Fostering a willingness to creatively engage within an aesthetic problem-solving process that allows children to select, represent, and explain their thoughts and actions will help them develop skills necessary for success in an unknown future.