Summer is a wonderful time for discovery, and encouraging creativity in your children is a vital part of their development. Imagining, trying new ways of doing things and experimenting help develop critical thinking in children and foster creative problem solving.

While your child is having fun, they are also developing:

Motor Skills: Many of the motions involved in making art, such as holding a paintbrush or scribbling with a crayon, are essential to the growth of fine motor skills in young children.

Language Development: For very young children, making art—or just talking about it—provides opportunities to learn words for colors, shapes, and actions.

Decision Making: Art education strengthens problem-solving and critical-thinking skills. The experience of making decisions and choices in the course of creating art carries over into other parts of life.

Visual Learning: Drawing, sculpting with clay, and threading beads on a string all develop visual-spatial skills, which are more important than ever.

Inventiveness: When kids are encouraged to express themselves and take risks in creating art, they develop a sense of innovation that will be important in their adult lives.

Scientific evidence aside, art is fun! This summer, roll up your sleeves, find a project, and create lasting memories with your child.