Paint on little fingers. Playdough squished into the carpet. A drawing that apparently is a dinosaur, even if you can’t quite see it yet.

Creative play can be messy, colourful and wonderfully chaotic. But while kids are busy drawing, colouring, moulding, making and imagining, there’s a whole lot more going on than simply keeping little hands occupied.

Giving children the freedom to create can encourage them to explore ideas, experiment, express themselves and build confidence along the way.

Here are eight reasons we’re big fans of making more room for creativity.

1. It gets little hands moving

Drawing, colouring, painting, cutting, squeezing and shaping all require children to use small, precise hand and finger movements.

These kinds of creative activities give kids plenty of opportunities to practise their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination, whether they’re holding a marker, rolling a ball of clay or carefully adding the finishing touches to their latest masterpiece.

And the best bit? They’re usually having far too much fun to realise they’re practising anything at all.

2. It gives imagination somewhere to go

Give a child a blank page and it could become almost anything.

A sea monster. A rainbow rocket. A family of purple prawns. A completely new creature that definitely needs seventeen eyes.

Creative play gives kids the freedom to come up with their own ideas rather than following a set of instructions or looking for one “right” answer.

It’s a chance to imagine, invent and create a little world of their own.

3. It encourages problem solving

Creativity doesn’t always go according to plan.

Maybe the colour isn’t quite right. The tower keeps falling over. The drawing looks completely different from the picture they had in their head.

That’s part of the fun.

Creative play gives children opportunities to experiment, make changes and try another approach. Instead of worrying about getting everything perfect the first time, they can discover what happens when they simply give something a go.

4. It can be a sensory experience

Creative play can involve so much more than what children see.

There’s the squish of clay between their fingers. The scratch of a pencil across paper. The feeling of paint on a brush. The colours they choose and the movement involved in making their creation.

Exploring different materials, textures and colours can make creativity a wonderfully hands-on sensory experience.

5. It offers another way to express themselves

Sometimes kids have plenty to say without actually saying a word.

The things they draw, the colours they choose and the stories they invent can all become ways of exploring ideas, memories and feelings.

There doesn’t always need to be a deeper meaning behind every scribble, of course. Sometimes a giant pink octopus really is just a giant pink octopus.

But giving kids opportunities to create also gives them another way to show us a little bit of their world.

6. It gets their brains busy

Creative play often starts with an idea:

I want to make this.

Then comes the fun part: figuring out how.

Children might think about shapes, colours, materials, patterns and how different pieces fit together. They’re taking something that exists in their imagination and working out how to turn it into something they can see, touch or share.

That’s a lot happening during one afternoon of “just drawing”.

7. It can bring kids together

Creativity can be just as much fun with friends.

Kids can draw together, swap ideas, share materials, create characters, tell stories and work on something as a team.

There’s no scoreboard and no winner required. Just plenty of opportunities to collaborate, communicate and see what somebody else comes up with.

And sometimes the best ideas happen when two wonderfully weird imaginations collide.

8. It builds that brilliant “I made this!” feeling

There’s something pretty special about making something that didn’t exist before.

For kids, finishing a creation can bring a wonderful sense of ownership and pride.

Creative play also gives them permission to experiment. Things can be changed, coloured over, added to or started again. There’s room for wonky lines, unexpected colours and happy accidents.

Because creativity doesn’t need to be perfect to be something worth feeling proud of.

Creativity you can take swimming

At Draw On Swimwear, we think creativity belongs everywhere. Not just at the craft table.

That’s why our swimwear was designed to become a canvas too.

Kids can draw, colour, create and make their swimwear their own, turning something they already wear into an opportunity for imagination and self-expression.

They can create by themselves, get their friends involved, draw something inspired by a holiday or simply cover their swimmers in whatever wonderfully wild idea pops into their head that day.

Because sometimes a swimsuit can be more than a swimsuit.

Sometimes it’s a blank canvas waiting for a kid with a very big imagination.