Your preschooler has an imagination that rivals the most creative Hollywood screenwriter. The stories they tell, the tales they create and scenes that they set are pure genius. And that's why the child care center wants to help your little learner to develop their creativity, problem-solving and critical thinking skills.

How does the early learning environment help young children to build creativity and express themselves? Take a look at the top ways that your child can flex their imagination muscle during the daycare day.

Dress-Up Box

Costumes aren't just for Halloween. While your child's daycare center may not have an extensive wardrobe of outfits, they may have at least a few different dress-up options. These could include adult types of clothes such as a suit jacket or cocktail dress, along with hats, bracelets, shoes or purses. The dress-up box may also include seasonal picks, such as a winter jacket or a beach towel.

Using these items provides the young child with the chance to explore different roles, create their own scenes or act out stories from books. This type of play inspires creativity, with the clothes acting as a prompt for imagining new narratives.

Play Kitchen

Like the dress-up box, the play kitchen provides plenty of opportunities for the young child to pretend that they're a cast of characters. Whether they're playing out a family breakfast scene or acting as a chef in a restaurant, this type of play can also help preschoolers to explore different roles (such as mother, father, cook) that they may take on in the future.

Art Center

Paint, crayons, markers, clay and everything else in the child care room's art center all help to ignite your preschooler's imagination. Process art experience that encourage the young child to explore the materials and make their own discoveries provide the perfect artsy playground for creating in a wildly imaginative way.

As your child paints, draws, sculpts or collages, they're expressing their inner selves, getting creative and developing problem-solving skills in a self-directed way. This can foster independence, self-reliance and confidence building.

Book Nook

How can books lead to childhood creativity development? Reading opens up a whole new world to your child. Instead of sitting in the daycare classroom, they can imagine that they're in the middle of the ocean on a boat, climbing a tall mountain, floating through space or are spending the day with the characters from the book that their teacher is reading.

Creativity and child care go hand in hand. During the daycare day, your child will have the chance to imagine, create and grow as they play, paint and read.