4 Ways to Teach Creative Thinking. Lesson Planning Made Easy!

1.  (Play) Natural Environment

To provide a natural environment; we must always have the understanding that nothing is perfect, but that we live in an environment that can be influenced with either negative or positive learning experiences.  To provide an environment filled with positive learning experiences, we need to provide the opportunities and tools to blossom a child perfectly with exactly what they need to grow and to development normally.  For early learners, their world is a classroom filled with discovery and exploration.  They are learning simple concepts that emerge into more complex learning experiences for the first time.  It's very easy for us, as educators or caregivers, to take a meaningful moment for granted and miss it's potential for learning.  To look through the Bee Lens for Learning opportunities in a natural environment, we need to train our eyes to  recognize a meaningful moment by what kind of visual connections we can make with ordinary play during yours/their day.  Are we connecting a child to child discussion over a crayon as a disagreement or a classroom issue that has made chaos in your perfect classroom environment?  Or are we establishing the freedom for expressive communication, but observing behaviors of playful learning now in a more useful and calm way?  Recognizing weaknesses and strong areas with children that we can build on, helps our children to feel accepted, heard, respected, confident and balanced.  This will not only help you to provide opportunities for learning by knowing how they learn best, but will help you to connect their way of learning best with learning opportunities and tools to build on.  This will naturally create a positive learning environment during this learning moment and set the example for their future as well.  Once we tap into their natural way of learning through play, we have began the ECE journey with them. 

How can we bring Natural Learning Through Play in the classroom, home school or home environment that will stimulate creative thinking naturally? 

Sounds like a lot of work!  Actually, it's Lesson Planning Made Easy!  To create an environment that will nurture creative thinking, we must provide the freedom to express themselves naturally.  Every child learns differently and in their own way.  Freedom for Learning Styles, like this one, will help create an all-inclusive environment so every child can learn at the same rate as the next child.  A structured and ridged environment may stifle creative expression through play.  It could even prevent this very important learning ability to grow, expand and develop crucial problem solving/critically thinking skills for the academic setting or in Life.  Too structured of an environment for an early learner could miss the essence for providing opportunities to retain information naturally.  Freedom to play in a natural environment will, no doubt, put their senses into overdrive to explore and to discover their world around them.  It's as simple and easy as Natural Learning Through Play. 

2.  (Observe) Lesson Planning

Creating lesson plans that will stimulate creativity may be hard to capture during our lesson plan template stage. But with our new template series, you will be able to create a lesson plan portfolio that will help you to visually observe and document it's direction, trends, likes and dislikes, meaningful moments, webbing out ideas, scaffolding questions and a mutual topic to build on. 

Why do we need to stimulate creative thinking during play?

A.  Problem Solving:

*Understanding the Problem
*Creating Other Ways to Solve this Problem
*Evaluating Options and Selecting a New Way to Solve this Problem
*Putting this New Way into Action

B.  Critical Thinking Skills:

*Analyzing
*Applying Knowledge/Standards
*Recognizing Differences and Similarities 
*Information Seeking and Researching for Evidence, Facts and Knowledge
*Finding Conclusions that are Supported by Evidence, Facts and Knowledge
*Making Predictions
*Taking New Knowledge and Applying it


3.  (Connections) ECE/ECI

When looking through your Bee Lens for Learning while observing your children freely playing during your day.  You will easily see their meaningful moments for learning and will easily stimulate not only their creative thinking, but will stimulate your creative thinking to apply learning opportunities and tools as well.  Creating a natural environment for learning through play takes practice and building observation knowledge to implement the lesson plan that will create the perfect outcome.  But remember, nothing is perfect and neither is your outcome.  In a natural learning environment through play the learning opportunities are endless.  Today, we begin planning for an amazing day playing with our friends and family socializing, exploring and discovering the world around them.  But children have an amazing way of adapting to learning experiences and finding new ways for knowledge and applying it together.  They move with the world around them.  Just observing through our Bee Lens for Learning will teach us new learning concepts for professional development as well.

4.  (Create) Cultural Integrity

Establishing your own style for Natural Learning Through Play plays an important role by staying focus for the best learning outcome for your children and creates cultural integrity at the same time.  Taking your existing curriculum program and integrating a new specialized curriculum to create a custom made learning environment needs guidance with mentoring to succeed.  For a free consultation to establish your style and vision:  ChildrenFirstCurriculumUSA@gmail.com  (Put in email subject line "Lesson Planning Made Easy!") Phone Consultation Are Available ~ Written by Deborah Barnes, Early Childhood Specialized Curriculum Consultant, Teacher and Tutor.  ECE Solutions Made Easy!

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*Natural Learning-Is a meaningful moment in their natural learning experience and environment (FNL/SNL) that is brought forward through purposely thought out engaging activities, opportunities and learning tools that are implemented through free movement to explore and to discover their world around them.   Hence, the ability to play in a natural learning environment is the best way to freely teach creative thinking for analysis and problem solving skill building. 

Final Reflection:  Natural learning for survival for an early learner is an inner call to learn their environment.  Nurturing their natural senses to want to learn will expand on your own Bee Lens for Learning for personal/group professional development too.  Call for workshop times and dates.  
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