Self expression is a key aspect of artistic enquiry, enriching young children’s experiences
and providing media for creative and imaginative expression. It encourages and supports emerging
thinking processes, allowing children to produce new understandings as they explore in a participatory
and active way. Even babies are able to create and respond to sound. The more experiences
of materials a child explores, the more skilful they become in expressing and communicating
ideas they may otherwise have struggled to share.
So we’re thinking really about self expression now and the use of materials and how materials
supports that in young children. And how they, I suppose, even from a really early age, discover
materials, even things that are very ordinary materials to us like paper or wood, and how
that becomes a sort of a really sensory sort of discovery, and they might explore it in
several different ways than we might expect them to.
I guess it’s sort of being, having an understanding of a whole range of materials and like building
up the knowledge of what different materials can do. So like talking about bubble-wrap
and corrugated paper and pieces of metal all lead into completely different forms of expression,
depending on the child and the time of day and like how they combine different things.
And it’s that sort of, you know, the fact that even young children have just got a whole
– you know if I gave a grown-up a bongo or something they might put it between their
knees and they would play it in the way that they thought. But children will get their
elbows and have a go at banging on it. And again, sort of talking about that’s ok,
you’re making a sound, you know, you’re discovering, you’re learning, you’re thinking
of new ways to do things, it’s that critical thinking.
So we’re thinking now about the importance of watching and noticing in relation to creative
expression, and that idea of us having to give ourselves permission really to sit back
a little bit and watch and really notice what the children are doing and how they’re exploring
materials and what they’re perhaps interested in or intending to do with them before we
get involved with that and intervene. Just taking the time to watch what a child
is doing or what a group of children is doing is so important to get a sense of where they’re
going with their ideas. And I think then what happens is the children
see you as a sort of that person watching and noticing, and they also watch and notice.
So, like you say, they will watch me and they will maybe take on things that I do. But then
I also encourage them to think of their own ideas, and they have lots of opportunity to
think of their own ways to respond to music or movement or material. And they then get
the opportunity to, if they want to, to share their ideas with others. And the children
are very used to watching each other. So we’re thinking really now about the role
of dialogue alongside the creative and expressive work that we do, and the importance of the
dialogue that the children have with the materials, and the way they express. Also how the adult
can support that. I think that happens a lot in movement sessions
where it’s very non-verbal and they’re just moving scarves or they’re moving ribbons
or they’re moving their bodies. And children who maybe don’t have any language can fully
express themselves through movement and response through movement. And then I can add then
a narration or a dialogue alongside to sort of support what they’re doing. And so, you
know, talk about the way that scarf’s going around in a spiral, or it’s moving in a
circle, or it’s I can see it getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And I will
sort of gesticulate as well and do the movements with them and can sort of continue to narrate
as they’re doing the movements. Materials allow young children to express,
explore and communicate creatively, even before the acquisition of language.
The adult role is key, watching and noticing to consider the interests and intentions of
the child, and offering a rich spoken language alongside the exploration. This enriches their
experiences with the provision of new vocabulary. The greater the range and variety of materials
offered, the greater the creative expression of self possible. The materials can be explored
for their properties or sensory characteristics, or may become prompts or links to other imaginative work.