Creative but how?

Creating creative spaces for the youngest is the motto of Lapurla - children follow their curiosity. The national initiative's new brochure shows how parents or other adults can be creative with children aged 0 to 4 without too much effort.

It's winter and the coronavirus situation is making us stay at home even more than usual. What to do with small children during this time? Lapurla, an initiative of Migros Culture Percentage and Bern University of the Arts (HKB), has developed a new brochure. With six ideas, parents and adults who enjoy spending time with small children are given suggestions on how they can encourage creativity in their children aged 0 to 4 in their everyday lives. You don't need expensive toys or elaborate craft instructions to do this - this much can be revealed.

The «impulses», as they are called in the brochure, are simple. For example, the chapter «Searching, collecting and changing» describes how children can experiment with strings, boxes, lids or fabric scraps. How do the materials behave, what can they be used to build? Can they be stacked? Another chapter, «Short distances for short legs», encourages parents to consider whether travelling by car or public transport is really necessary if there are exciting places to explore in the immediate vicinity. These usually start right outside the front door: the letterbox, the nearby stream or the parked bike can be just as adventurous for the little ones as a planned visit to an amusement park or indoor playground.

The brochure "Kreativer von Anfang an: 6 Impulse für Eltern und andere Erwachsene, die gerne Zeit mit Kleinkindern verbringen" can be downloaded here free of charge in German, English, French and Italian as a PDF or ordered as a print product.
The brochure "Kreativer von Anfang an: 6 Impulse für Eltern und andere Erwachsene, die gerne Zeit mit Kleinkindern verbringen" can be downloaded here free of charge in German, English, French and Italian as a PDF or ordered as a print product.

How did the idea for the brochure come about?

In times of the pandemic, it is particularly important that children can develop their creativity despite major restrictions. After all, creativity is considered one of the most important skills of the future. What's more, around 90 per cent of synapses in the brain are formed in the first few years of life.

Unfortunately, Switzerland is still a developing country when it comes to early childhood education. Education and equal opportunities start from birth, not just in kindergarten. By early childhood education, I don't mean school-based education such as early English or early maths. For us at Lapurla, it's about giving children as many different aesthetic experiences as possible so that they can discover and experience the world with all their senses on a daily basis. To do this, children need adults who are curious themselves and want to experiment with them. The brochure aims to encourage this without being prescriptive. After all, following instructions would be the opposite of being creative.

Karin Kraus has a degree in art education and has led the CAS Cultural Education - Enabling Creativity from Early Childhood at Bern University of the Arts (HKB) since 2013. As a lecturer and speaker, she has been committed to creating more creative freedom for children, young people and adults in Switzerland and abroad for around 20 years. www.karinkraus.ch
Karin Kraus has a degree in art education and has led the CAS Cultural Education - Enabling Creativity from Early Childhood at Bern University of the Arts (HKB) since 2013. As a lecturer and speaker, she has been committed to creating more creative freedom for children, young people and adults in Switzerland and abroad for around 20 years. www.karinkraus.ch

What about children who just don't want to paint or do arts and crafts?

Children are curious from birth, but perhaps not in the areas we have planned for them. The task of us adults is therefore to offer them as many different experiences as possible, to follow their curiosity and to work with them to find out where their interests lie. If a child doesn't want to doodle today, the next day they will pile up wax crayons - there is no must, no requirement.

And what do you do with parents who have no flair for crafting and might even feel pressurised by such initiatives?

The brochure aims to encourage people to critically question these socially established habits and to leave the beaten track in order to devote themselves instead to fun activities that neither have presentable results as their goal, nor cost money or require stressful travelling. Rather, it is an appeal for more serenity, deceleration and appreciation for what we can learn from our children: To (re)discover the charm and magic in things, places and activities that may have long since become banal for us. The pandemic is forcing us to find new meaning in life.

More information on the national Lapurla initiative

The brochure is based on the principles of the focus publication Ästhetische Bildung und Kulturelle Teilhabe - von Anfang an! (2017), which gave rise to the national initiative Lapurla - Children follow their curiosity.
Further information www.lapurla.ch

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