Pablo Picasso once said, “All children are artists, the problem is how to remain an artist once you grow up”.

Perhaps Pablo Picasso recognised how hard it is to carry one’s inner child alive and well into adulthood.  He probably recognised also that adults become very time poor as they juggle life, family and work; creativity relies on lots of time to tinker, lots of time to think, lots of time to imagine and lots of resources to play around with.

At Kihikihi kindergarten the first few words of this quote takes a centre-stage position, “All children are artists”, it is hung there for our kindergarten community to be reminded of something really important.  That all children are artists, that they are creative thinkers, but we also know that the conditions need to be right for this creativity to be freely expressed.

Children need to work at their own pace making and drawing representations of their own thoughts, ideas and experiences, they don’t need templates or ready-made models to copy.

Children work through a very natural and common way of representing their thoughts using art materials.  There are stages to this development and as teachers we ensure that this process is not influenced by adults’ ideas or interpretations.

We believe that a child’s creative potential should be protected and nurtured, their ideas come from the playground of their imagination and h ere at kindergarten, they have the time to tinker, the time to think, the time to imagine and lots of resources to play around with.