Ep 43: Nurturing Creativity: Embracing Process Art with Jennifer McCarville

In today's episode, I had a great conversation with Jennifer McCarville, founder of Marvelously Made - The School for Young Children just outside of San Antonio, TX.  Jennifer has spent three decades studying early childhood education and child development. She is a steadfast and unapologetic advocate for children and their right to a play-filled and developmentally appropriate education. Her work training teachers and educating parents is equipping others to understand how children learn and what they need to thrive. Known for her genuine respect for young children and her trust in the God-designed process of growing and learning, Jennifer is changing the conversation around early education and the importance of saving childhood. Today Jennifer is going to discuss the importance of creating beautiful spaces for children and the role of process art in early education. She will share with us her heart for children to get to experience nurturing and visually appealing environments that help stimulate their creativity and learning–as well as her discernment on the difference between process art, which focuses on the child's experience and exploration, and product-based art, which is more about the end result. We are going to talk about the potential concerns of choosing to not implement process art and what can be done to help introduce it in the classroom. Together we will share our thoughts on how teachers can shift their mindset from being instructors to being observers of children's learning and to embrace the process of learning and growth. After listening to today's episode, we would love to hear your thoughts…What would your next step be in your classroom in trying out some process art?  How would you communicate to a parent what their child learned?  I hope you will be challenged to step back and evaluate your own classroom and activity plans.  Let us know how you do art in your classroom!   Links from the episode:  Marvelously Made - The School for Young Children - https://marvelouslymadeschool.com/ Save Childhood - https://www.savechildhood.org/ Root & Twig - The Marvelously Made Store - https://rootandtwigstore.com/ As always, we would love to connect with you on Instagram and on Facebook