Creativity in early childhood is the ability to produce ideas, actions and objects that are new to the child and meaningful to them, and it shows up far beyond art: in pretend play, block building, storytelling, movement, problem-solving and conversation. Educators nurture it mainly by offering open-ended materials, time and freedom to explore, by valuing process over finished products, and by responding to children's ideas with genuine interest rather than corrections.
Creativity is one of the six dimensions in the Global Nexus framework, and it is easily misunderstood as a talent some children have and others lack. This article explains how researchers think about creativity in young children, why it matters for development, what classroom conditions support it, and which common practices, often well meant, quietly undermine it.
What creativity looks like in children under six
Adults often look for creativity in the art corner, and expect it to appear as an attractive painting. That view is too narrow. A two-year-old who discovers that a cardboard tube can be a telescope, a trumpet and a tunnel for a toy car is being creative. A four-year-old who invents a new rule for a chasing game, or who explains that the moon follows the car because it wants to see where they are going, is generating original ideas. A five-year-old who builds a bridge with blocks and then redesigns it when it collapses is solving a problem creatively.
Researchers sometimes distinguish between "big-C" creativity, the eminent creativity of artists and scientists, and "little-c" or everyday creativity. James Kaufman and Ronald Beghetto added "mini-c" creativity in 2009 to describe the personally meaningful insights and interpretations that are central to learning. Most of what happens in a preschool is mini-c creativity: a child making sense of the world in a way that is new to them.
This broader view matters because it changes what adults notice and value. If creativity means attractive products, most children will seem uncreative and adults will be tempted to provide templates and models to copy. If creativity means original thinking in any form, adults will see it everywhere and look for ways to extend it.
What research tells us about creativity and young children
Divergent thinking is one part of the picture. J. P. Guilford's 1950 address to the American Psychological Association called for research on creativity and introduced the idea of divergent thinking, generating many possible answers rather than one correct one. E. Paul Torrance later developed widely used tests of creative thinking, which measure fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration.
Scores on creativity tests have been debated. Kyung Hee Kim's analysis of Torrance test data, published in 2011, reported declining scores among American children since around 1990, especially in younger age groups. The causes are disputed, but the study prompted wide discussion about how school and family life may limit opportunities for creative thinking.
Play and creativity are closely linked. Sandra Russ and others have studied pretend play as a source of creativity, linking the ability to imagine, use objects symbolically and express emotion in play with later divergent thinking. The research supports protecting rich pretend play time in the early years.
Creativity has many forms. Loris Malaguzzi's description of "the hundred languages of children" in Reggio Emilia captures the idea that children express ideas through drawing, building, movement, music, drama and many other forms, and that schools often recognise only one or two of them.
Materials that invite creative thinking
The materials in a classroom shape what children can imagine. Open-ended materials, those that can be used in many different ways, tend to invite more creative play than toys with a single function.
- Natural materials: leaves, seeds, stones, sticks, shells, sand and water, which change with the seasons and connect to children's surroundings.
- Loose parts: lids, tubes, fabric scraps, wooden pieces, cardboard boxes and containers, based on Simon Nicholson's 1971 theory of loose parts, which suggested that the creativity of an environment depends on the number and kind of variables in it.
- Construction materials: unit blocks, hollow blocks and planks, which allow children to build and rebuild structures and stories.
- Art materials: paint, clay, crayons, collage materials and paper in different sizes, offered without templates.
- Dramatic play props: simple, multipurpose items such as scarves, baskets, hats and pots, rather than detailed costumes that fix one role.
- Musical instruments and movement props: drums, shakers, ribbons and recorded music from Vietnam and other cultures.
Quantity is not the main issue. A few well-chosen materials, presented attractively and rotated over time, usually invite more creative play than a crowded shelf. Teachers can also bring in materials connected to the current theme, such as baskets and banana leaves during a market theme, and watch how children use them.
Process over product
One of the most important shifts for educators is to value the process of creating more than the finished product. In process-focused art, children explore materials and ideas freely, and the outcome is not predetermined. In product-focused art, children follow steps to produce an object that looks like a model, such as identical paper flowers or cut-out animals.
Product-focused activities have a place: they teach following instructions and certain fine-motor skills, and families often enjoy receiving recognisable objects. But if they dominate, children learn that there is a right way to make art and that their own ideas are less valuable than the teacher's. Creativity requires the opposite message.
Displays reveal which approach a school values. A wall of twenty nearly identical paper butterflies tells visitors that conformity is the goal. A display of varied paintings, photographs of block structures with children's explanations and drawings that show how an idea developed over a week tells visitors that thinking is the goal. In the Global Nexus framework, displays are encouraged to show children's process and words, not only finished items.
This shift needs to be explained to families, who may be used to receiving neat crafts and may wonder why their child brings home a painting that looks like a mess of colour. A short note or photograph showing the process, with the child's own words about what they were trying, helps families see the thinking behind the work. Many parents become enthusiastic supporters once they understand that the messy painting represents a child experimenting with how colours mix, rather than a failed attempt at a picture.
Drawing on Vietnamese traditions of making and play
Discussions of creativity in early childhood often draw on European and American examples, but Vietnamese culture offers a rich store of creative traditions that a bilingual preschool can use. Folk rhymes and chanting games known as đồng dao invite children to play with rhythm, sound and nonsense words, and to invent new verses. Traditional games such as ô ăn quan, played with small stones in a grid of squares drawn on the ground, involve strategy and can be adapted by children who create their own rules.
Craft traditions offer open-ended inspiration too. Tò he, the small coloured figures shaped from rice dough at festivals, show children that simple materials can become animals, characters and stories. The star lanterns made for the Mid-Autumn Festival can be a starting point for children to design their own lanterns from paper, bamboo sticks and recycled materials, rather than copying one model. Water puppetry can inspire children to make puppets and invent stories to perform.
The aim is not to preserve traditions as fixed objects to be reproduced exactly, but to show children that their own culture is full of inventive people and to invite them to add their own ideas. Families, grandparents and local craftspeople can be invited to share skills, which connects creativity with community and gives international teachers a way to learn alongside the children.
How teachers respond to children's ideas
The way adults respond to children's ideas has a large effect on creativity. Quick corrections, such as "cows aren't purple" or "that's not how you build a house", signal that there is one right answer. Generic praise, like "beautiful" or "good job", can also limit creativity because it focuses on the adult's judgement and gives children little information.
More helpful responses describe what the child has done and invite them to say more. "You used lots of different blues here. Can you tell me about it?" or "I see your tower has a wide bottom. Why did you build it that way?" These responses show interest, encourage reflection and invite children to extend their ideas.
Teachers can also model creative thinking themselves: wondering aloud, suggesting unusual possibilities, admitting when they do not know and trying a new approach. When adults treat mistakes as interesting rather than embarrassing, children feel safer taking creative risks. In a bilingual classroom, this includes accepting creative uses of language, such as mixing Vietnamese and English to express an idea, as a sign of active thinking rather than an error to correct immediately.
What gets in the way of creativity
Many obstacles to creativity in preschools are not deliberate; they come from time pressure, family expectations or habits inherited from older forms of schooling.
- Over-scheduled days: creativity needs long periods of uninterrupted play. Frequent transitions break children's concentration before ideas develop.
- Templates and colouring sheets: used occasionally they do little harm, but as the main art activity they replace children's own ideas.
- Fear of mess: paint, clay, water and sand are messy, and limiting them to protect clean floors limits exploration. Good storage and simple clean-up routines solve most of the problem.
- Constant evaluation: competitions, prizes for the "best" drawing and public comparison push children to play safe.
- Adult takeover: finishing a child's project to make it look better, or directing every step of a building activity, removes ownership.
- Screen-heavy routines: entertainment screens can occupy time that would otherwise go to imaginative play, particularly at home.
Addressing these obstacles usually requires decisions by school leaders about schedules, materials, displays and communication with families, not only changes by individual teachers.
A useful exercise for a teaching team is to look back over one ordinary week and ask how many minutes children spent in uninterrupted, self-directed play, how many art activities had a fixed outcome, and how often adults finished or corrected children's work. The answers are usually more revealing than any policy statement.
Creativity and the other dimensions
Creativity does not develop in isolation. It depends on language, as children describe and develop ideas; on emotion, as they feel safe enough to take risks; on independence, as they choose materials and carry out plans; on thinking, as they solve problems; and on life skills, as they collaborate on shared projects. Creative play, in turn, strengthens each of these areas.
Project-based learning, borrowed in Global Nexus from Reggio Emilia and other approaches, brings these connections together. A project about water might involve experiments, drawings, songs, building a model of a canal and visiting a nearby river. Children generate questions, test ideas, represent what they learn in different forms and share their work with families. Creativity is not a separate subject but a way of working that runs through the project.
For school leaders and teachers, the practical question is whether the daily schedule, materials and adult responses give creativity room to grow. A visitor can usually tell within a short time: look for children absorbed in their own projects, varied work on the walls and adults who ask more questions than they answer.
Câu hỏi thường gặp
Are some children naturally more creative than others?
Children differ in temperament, interests and preferred forms of expression, so creativity shows up in different ways. But every child is capable of creative thinking, and the environment strongly shapes how much it develops. Offering many forms of expression helps each child find their own strengths.
Should preschool art activities have a model to copy?
Occasionally, a model can teach a technique or support a specific skill. As the main approach, however, models tend to reduce children's own ideas. Process-focused activities, with materials offered openly and no fixed outcome, give more room for creativity and still build fine-motor skills.
How can creativity be assessed without scores?
Teachers observe and document how children generate ideas, use materials, solve problems and express themselves across different forms. Photographs, children's explanations and samples of work over time show growth. Creativity is described in words and shared with families, without grades or rankings.
Does learning two languages help creativity?
Some studies suggest bilingual experience may support flexible thinking and seeing problems from different angles, but findings are mixed and the effects are debated. The safest statement is that bilingualism gives children rich experience with different ways of expressing ideas, which can support creative communication.
What is the role of pretend play in creativity?
Pretend play asks children to imagine, use objects symbolically, invent stories and take on roles, all of which involve creative thinking. Research links rich pretend play with later creativity and with social and emotional skills, so protecting time for it is one of the most effective ways to nurture creativity.