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Crafts CouncilLearningEducation

Developing creativity for early years

Theresa Nguyen, an Artist Silversmith and Make Your Future maker-educator reflects on her experiences in family learning projects


  • Craft educator
  • Craft education
  • Metalworking

Theresa Nguyen

As a mother of two wonderful early years’ children (0-5 years) and a practicing artist silversmith, I am passionate about encouraging personal creativity. Attending a Moonbeams seminar on the topic of creativity in early years, allowed me to reflect on my experience of teaching in this area.

The Moonbeam seminar was delivered by artist educator and pedagogist Debi Keyte-Hartland. Debi spoke about her visits to the pre-schools and infant toddler centres of Reggio Emilia and her encounters of the Reggio Approach in other European countries. She was able to observe how the “educators prepared, curated and designed materials and learning contexts for young children that met the ideas and thinking of the children themselves” Debi Keyte – Hartland, Early Education Journal No 89 Winter 2019

We are all born with the capacity to be creative – that’s who we are!


Theresa Nguyen

One brilliant case study that Debi spoke about was a learning exercise with babies and preschool children in Stockholm, Sweden. The educators filled sacks with different types of materials like sand (heavy) and fluffy cotton (light). The babies and children experienced moving and pulling the sacks across a space, feeling and learning with their bodies.

Attending the Moonbeams seminar allowed me to reflect back on an early year’s project that I worked on in 2018 with Craftspace called ‘Making Together’. This 5 week project created the environment for families to grow together through making together in an open ended way.


  • Making Together - Craftspace workshop. Photo: Liz Ord

Sensory metalsmithing

For this project, I teamed up with artist, Hannah Brown. Together we transformed the space at the Birmingham Settlement into a metalsmithing workshop and created a metal sensory area, featuring treasure baskets filled with patterned beakers, silver chains, household objects such as sewing bobbins, washers and paperclips. These metal objects really did become a source of joy for grandfather and grandson, James (10 months) who spent at least 45 minutes on the floor exploring the tactile forms and sound qualities that the objects made. Reflective mirrored surfaces, fabrics and lights also offered a curated space that enabled the children’s creativity and senses to be engaged.

Observing what was happening with the children as they experienced the tools and their learning about the materials was very insightful for me. Knowing when to stand aside, listening to the children as they explored or when the right time to speak with the children as they shared their artwork. It was important to be subtle in my intervention so as not to disturb the creative flow.


  • Texturing copper shim. Photo: Liz Ord

Material presentation

Through experimenting and exploring the materials myself to understand the creative possibilities of the materials, I can then think about how I can generate creative contexts to build on children’s thoughts, theories or emotions that they have about the world.

In planning for the activities, I needed to consider the motivations of the children so that the activity resonated with their interests.

One of the planned activities during the project was a large strip of copper shim that was laid on the floor with silversmithing hammers of various shapes, materials and weights and agate burnishers and textured hammers laid around the copper sheet. It was a very accessible activity that promoted engagement through play and simply having a go. Anthony (2 years 4months) said he liked the hammers and tools and loved the fact that he could freely play with real ones. Surprisingly, his baby brother showed good hand and eye coordination when beating hammer marks into the metal for someone so young. At the end of the session the copper artwork was mounted on the wall so that the children could view this for the following session as a continuation and reflection on their learning.

It was very special to see this intergenerational sharing of ideas and techniques and exploring metal together.


Theresa Nguyen

Grandparents, parents and carers with younger children were also enthusiastic to get stuck in, working closely and sensitively with their children on their laps or by their side.

I had the privilege of teaching a lady called Lydia (she was a great grandmother to Amara (7 months) and grandmother to Cherelle (mother to Amara). We sat together and I taught her the technique of metal embossing and hand chasing using steel patterned punches to apply texture and pattern to the metal. It was wonderful to see the way she applied the new skills that she had just learnt and her accuracy and improvement in striking the chasing punches to imprint the pattern on the metal.


  • Wire work

  • Sensory play

  • Mesh butterfly

  • Saw piercing. Photos: Liz Ord

Reflection and curiosity

Looking back, the metal embossing workshop allowed participants to come up with their own ideas to express their creativity, individuality and what they felt in the moment. One father who is a surface pattern designer approached his metal embossing in a similar way to how you would approach a pencil sketch on paper. Another lady approached her design using purely dots, similar to pointillism, this was visually appealing, and something that I had not explored before with metal embossed designs. I had learnt something new about the possibilities of the technique through observing the participants at work.

I was mindful of curating the space and being thoughtful about what tools and how the materials were laid out on the table. Upon seeing the tools individually laid out, one child spotted the wire cutters. He showed great dexterity handling the wire cutters. He was then curious about the vice clamped to the table. His interest led me to show him how to twist copper wire using a brace and vice to clamp the wires. He was then given the freedom to explore and develop his own knowledge of manipulating and shaping electrical wires.

We had a range of children and babies making paintbrushes out of wire and natural found objects/ materials such as twigs, leaves, foliage, feathers. This allowed the children to paint and do mark making on rolls of paper fixed to the wall and ground outside. A lot of the parents commented that this was not something that they had experienced before.


  • Wire work. Photo: Liz Ord

Children making choices

Another golden moment was seeing Viv and her granddaughter Davni (4 years old) engage with the metal embossing activity together. Davni drew a picture of a mermaid that she embossed into stainless steel mesh. They spent time considering the patterned punches that they wanted to use for the lips, eyes, hair of the mermaid and it was inspiring to see Viv encourage Davni to take the lead in making choices about the design and selecting the punches that she wanted to imprint onto her metal design.

Children have the ability to see things in fresh ways and being in a group, children collaborate together and experiment, so it is not always the case that as the educator, I need to provide them with information. Instead, my role is to allow children to think along unexpected lines and problem solving for themselves to create something truly original and unique.

I am learning to see the world through the eyes of children again and to remind myself to never stop being curious and asking questions.


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