Given what is known about young children's learning and about their amazing competence to express their visions of themselves and their world, how can the classroom be modified to support children's emerging creativity?

Time

Creativity does not follow the clock. Children need extended, unhurried time to move to a different learning center or activity when he/she is still productively engaged and motivated by a piece of work.

Space
Children need a place to leave unfinished work to continue the next day, and a space that inspires them to do their best work. A barren, drab environment is not conducive to creative work. Rather, children's work is fostered by a space that utilizes natural light, harmonious colors, and comfortable child-sized areas, examples of their own and other's work (not only their classmates, but as appropriate, also their teachers and selected adult artists), and inviting materials.

Materials
Without spending great amounts of money our teachers organize wonderful collections of resource materials that might be bought, found or recycled. These materials can include paper goods of all kinds; writing and drawing tools; materials for constructions and collages, such as buttons, stones, shells, beads and seeds; and sculpting materials, such as palydough, goop, clay and shaving cream. These materials are used most productively and imaginatively by children when they themselves have helped select, organize, sort and arrange them.

Climate
Our classroom atmosphere reflects the adult's encouragement and acceptance of mistakes, risk-taking, innovation and uniqueness, along with a certain amount of mess, noise and freedom.

This is not a matter of chaos, or of tight control, but instead is something inbetween. In order to create such a climate, our teachers have given themselves permission to try artistic activity themselves and have discovered the pleasure of venturing some distance down the road of self-expression. Their skill then translates into the work with the children.

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Occasions
Children's best and most exciting work involves an intense or arousing encounter between themselves and their inner or outer world. Our teachers provide the occasions for these adventures. Children find it hard to be creative without a concrete inspiration. Instead, they prefer to draw on the direct evidence of their senses or memories. These memories can become more vivid and accessible through the teacher's provocation's and preparations. For example, our teachers encourage children to represent their knowledge and ideas before and after they have watched an absorbing show, taken a trip or observed and discussed an interesting plant or animal brought to class. In doing so the children are given the opportunity to reflect, organize and express their own individual perspective.