One of our favorite games at home it to play on the piano an expressions of how a person talks, or an idea or a color. There are no limits to avenues of creativity. Not only are famous artists and musicians studied, but ordinary people who bring arts into their everyday lives. A child might interview parents, teachers, grandparents, to see what art forms they pursue as hobbies, what they did as children, and what are their dreams. One school we know selects a group art creation every year and auctions it off to raise money for a field trip.
Many elementary classes create original musical reviews and music concerts.
Studying the creative forms of other cultures, experiencing the dances and playing the musical instruments, studying the reasons why different architectural forms developed, and clothing or language, give a child an understanding of the universality of human needs and expression. When elementary-aged children reach adolescence they enter one of the most creative period of life, and will create based on those talents they have begun to develop in earlier years. For them, and for adults who have had this experience, living without the arts would seem like living in black and white instead of in color. This period of life, between the age of six and twelve, is the time to explore and to develop a facility in as many creative forms as possible. The products selected by the Michael Olaf Montessori staff are very different from those commonly available for children.