Today’s activity is one that’s fabulous fun for children and parents alike. It’s all about showing children how quick and easy it is to transform their drawings, paintings, and art using Artificial Intelligence (‘A.I.’). With help from a parent, magical results take just minutes to accomplish, and each transformation is often incredible. It’s also clear that the finished results truly honour children’s creations, while simultaneously elevating them to new, highly professional digital art imagery. What’s more, the tools that achieve this are freely available to families via desktop computers and smartphone apps.
Let’s dive in, then, to see how children and parents can take children’s art to magical new heights — easily, and in just minutes. We’ve also included some ‘before’ and ‘after’ images to exemplify what’s possible using the right approach. Parental or adult supervision is, of course, essential, particularly for the youngest children.
Why Introduce A.I. Digital Art Transformations to Children
This activity will encourage children’s art, communication and creative skills, and boost their understanding of today’s world. While some may be nervous about introducing youngsters to A.I., it’s a technology that’s ubiquitous — embedded all around us on computers, smartphones, and countless other devices. Indeed, today’s children are likely to grow up with it being a normal part of their lives. Many will grow up using A.I. daily at home and in the workplace, and some may even end up in a career that involves it. So, what better way to introduce artificial intelligence to little ones than via a responsible parent who has their best interests at heart? Such a parent can closely supervise them and ensure they use A.I. safely and responsibly. With that in mind, today’s A.I. art activity is a simple but fun way to help them see the technology’s potential, and to generate digital art that they can call their own and be proud of. Bringing their art to life in this way will also demonstrate that their imaginations, ideas and creations have enormous potential, are valued, and therefore matter.
Bringing children’s art to life will demonstrate that their imaginations, ideas and creations have enormous potential, are valued, and therefore matter.
Here’s a clickable gallery showing what’s possible when you ask an A.I. tool to transform a child’s art:
Steps to Incredible A.I. Transformations
Step 1: Make a Drawing or Painting
Step 1 is for children to do what they often do best: draw or paint something on a sheet of paper. If they need some ideas, an image of one or more people, animals, monsters, robots or what they might imagine to be aliens would be a good place to start. They can include anything they like around the main character or focus of the piece, be it a background of a home, forest, mountain scene, alien landscape, or indeed nothing at all — because asking the A.I. tool to insert some kind of background is also something they can do (see Step 4).
Step 2: Photograph or Scan Your Child’s Art
Once the child is happy with their drawing or painting, the parent should scan or take a smartphone photo of the image from above and save it, noting where it’s been saved. Try to avoid casting any shadows across the art when you photograph it, and ensure the results are clear before moving to Step 3.
Step 3: Upload it to the A.I. Tool
The next step is to upload the saved photo to the A.I. tool. For most A.I. tools, this is usually done simply by clicking the + symbol in the chat window of your chosen A.I. tool (more about those below) and selecting the appropriate instruction (upload, or add photos/files, as appropriate). Then, ideally, include your instructions for the A.I. tool within the same prompt or, failing that, immediately after it in your next prompt. See Step 4 below for our recommendations.
Which A.I. Tool?
There are many different A.I. image-generating tools available to families, including powerful ones that are free to use, within certain limits. ChatGPT is perhaps the most well-known and has a fabulous image-generating tool, directly available from the chat prompt via the paperclip symbol (whether via its website or its smartphone app). However, ChatGPT has fairly stringent limitations on the number of image transformations it will produce per hour or day, particularly when the system is busy, and transformations may be a little slower than with some other A.I. tools (paid upgrades are available to reduce some of those limitations).
A good alternative for families to start off with is an A.I. tool that’s less stringent yet more accessible. ‘Copilot’ would be an excellent choice on Windows 11 PCs because it’s embedded into that operating system. Another good alternative would be Google Gemini, which is accessible directly via any web browser by clicking our bold, blue link.
Either way, an image can be uploaded from the A.I. chat prompt by clicking the + symbol, subsequently choosing ‘Upload’ for Copilot, ‘Add photos & files’ for ChatGPT, or ‘Upload files’ for Gemini.
Other A.I. tools are available, but the suggestions above are a good starting place. Parents will need to do their own research around functionality, any image generation limits, possible fees if they want to upgrade, privacy, image ownership, etc.
Step 4: Give the A.I. Instructions
Once your image has finished uploading to the A.I. chat prompt, the next step is to write your instructions, ideally in the same prompt window or, failing that, in the very next prompt that you make. Such instructions tell the A.I. tool what you want it to do with the image you have uploaded. You can give it some simple instructions, which will allow it flexibility to make many of its own decisions, or feed it highly detailed instructions that give you much more control on the final output. Your child can be involved in such instructions, of course, and this can all be a part of the creative fun! Such an option may work best once they’ve learnt what the A.I. tool is capable of doing, having perhaps transformed their first few pieces of art.
What Can You/Your Child Ask the A.I. For?
What you can ask the A.I. tool to do with your child’s drawing or painting is only limited by your (or their) imagination! For example:
- You could ask them to transform it into a cartoon style if you want to keep it simple (for example, in the style of SpongeBob SquarePants or The Simpsons).
- You could ask the A.I. to transform a scribble of a robot into a high-definition one that takes the same form but looks every bit like it’s made of painted metal and resides in a futuristic city.
- You could request a transformation in the style of a Pixar movie. For example, with the main character(s) having shaggy fur, bright colours, all set in the interior of an imaginary spacecraft with illuminated buttons and futuristic furniture.
- Another option would be to request the output to be in the style of clay characters of the kind you’d see in a Wallace & Gromit animated movie.
- Or ask for the final image to be in the style of a wooden puppet, a fabric soft toy like you’d see in a child’s nursery, or indeed something that looks like it is from Toy Story.
- You could perhaps ask for something that looks like your child’s drawn character comes from Sesame Street or The Muppets.
- Be aware that you can also specify the type of lighting (soft, hard, backlit, etc.), what the background should be, what the location is, what style of image it should be, and even whether any elements of the child’s original drawing should be ignored, adapted, or substituted. If you/your child has something in mind, simply tell the A.I. tool.
Step 5: Wait for the Amazing Results!
Once your child’s drawing or painting has been submitted along with the appropriate instructions, it’s a case of waiting a minute or two for the results. Be prepared for a “WOW!” from both yourself and your child when the generated image appears, because the results are usually incredibly impressive. The A.I. tool will have taken the essence of your child’s creation and elevated it to incredible new heights.
Here are a few more examples, which are clickable for a larger view:
We had the most fun creating today’s post! And, if it’s fun for adults, just imagine how enjoyable children will find the activity. With the help of a parent or carer, they’ll see their creations come to life in incredible ways. They’ll be able to see how simple drawings can be absolutely transformed into high-resolution, highly detailed, professional-looking imagery that would not look out of place in an art gallery, on TV, or in a cinematic movie. What’s more, they can let their imaginations strive for new heights by suggesting exactly how their images should be enhanced. Would they like their drawing to look like a character from The Smeds & The Smoos, something from a Minions movie, more akin to a cartoon character like Peppa Pig, or something that would look at home in a soft toy shop? With today’s A.I., they can let their imaginations run riot, wield truly powerful tools, and reach for the stars to transform their art into truly magical results. It takes just minutes — and can be achieved totally free of charge. After printing out the results or saving the images digitally, children will end up with something they can be proud of. More importantly, though, they will come to understand what magic is possible from something they have imagined and created.
A High-Quality Childcare Service in Streatham
Little Cedars Nursery — Weekday Childcare for Under-5s
Little Cedars Nursery is a wonderful childcare service in Streatham. The setting may also suit those searching for a good nursery/preschool near Streatham Common, Streatham Hill, Streatham Park, Tooting, Furzedown, Balham, Norbury, or Colliers Wood. Little Cedars Nursery is rated as a good provider by Ofsted, so you know your child will be in good hands. The nursery is warm and welcoming, with a home-from-home environment where children and babies feel safe, nurtured, loved, and valued. We have wonderful, caring staff and all the facilities, equipment, and resources that will ensure under-fives get the best start in life. By doing so, they’ll become the best versions of themselves and will be ready to thrive! Little Cedars Nursery supports free/funded childcare schemes for eligible children and babies.
Contact Little Cedars Nursery today to learn more, register for a place, or book a guided tour:
With warmer weather and plants and trees flourishing wherever we look, it got us thinking about some creative children’s activities, inspired by nature. One simple starting point is the humble leaf, which can lend itself to a surprisingly wide range of creative activities for children to enjoy. Such activities will not only draw children’s attention to 
The first thing children will need is, of course, a selection of suitable leaves. To give them enough scope for a wide range of creative activities, we suggest families forage a variety of different sizes and shapes. We suggest focusing primarily on tree leaves as these are likely to be fairly robust, come in lots of different forms, and often have well-defined ‘vein’ structures. Oak leaves, sycamore, beech, hawthorn, horse chestnut, lime, sweet chestnut and silver birch would represent a nicely varied selection, for example. Download our 
One of the most straightforward activities using leaves is for children to simply paint them. The youngest will love painting one side of each leaf in a different colour — or even adorn them with patterns like spots, zigzags, hearts, and stripes. Once the paint is dry, the leaves can be used in a variety of different ways. For example, they could be glued into an attractive design on a sheet of paper/card and displayed in a frame, made into a garland for the wall, bunched together to form an attractive hand-held fan, glued to a circle of paper or card to form an attractive crown, or glued to an upturned stick or tree sprig to represent a colourful tree. These are just a few ways they can be used once painted and, indeed, coming up with ideas is all part of the fun and creativity for children!
Collages made from leaves can also be very easy for children to accomplish; they just need a base card or paper, child-safe glue, some leaves and perhaps some flowers too. Ideally, leaves should be flat and, even better, dried. This can be achieved through pressing, which is explained later. For added beauty, add fresh or pressed flowers of different colours too — perhaps even other items like stars and glitter. Children can then gradually build up an attractive design (rather like organic wallpaper) or a simple picture like our example. It will result in a fascinating piece of leaf and flower art that can be displayed in the home — something for children to be proud of!
A freshly painted leaf can also be used to make leaf prints. When the paint is still very wet, children should simply turn their leaves over and press all areas of them against a sheet of paper or card. Doing this by hand is OK but if you have a roller, even better! In this way, the paint is transferred to the sheet and will typically show the leaf shape and all the structural veins of the donor leaf. And, by repeating the process with one or more leaves and colours, a design or picture can be gradually built up on the sheet. This might be as simple as a repeat pattern or as complex as a pictorial scene. By adding other media like painted or drawn lines, leaf prints could, for example, represent a forest on a hillside. Add little figures of people and perhaps little dogs underneath each ‘tree’ and it’ll start to come to life!
A leaf-rubbing activity is also fun and intriguing for little ones. Find a flat surface like a table or rigid sketch pad and place a thin sheet of paper over one or more leaves. By rubbing a thick wax crayon, charcoal stick, or soft-leaded pencil repeatedly over the sheet where there is an underlying leaf, the leaf’s form will gradually reveal itself. Children will be able to see the structural veins that form the leaf, along with leaf edges as they scribble. Children can experiment with different media, colours, and types of leaves to get different creative results.
eaves and small, non-bulky flowers can be dried and flattened through the process of pressing. All that’s needed is the leaves and flowers and a thick book of paper sheets — a large sketch pad is perfect or, alternatively, sheets of unprinted newsprint or blotting paper. Manually place single flowers and leaves between the leaves of the paper and then place something large, flat, and heavy over the entire thing and leave it for anything from a couple of days to a couple of weeks. How long will depend on the type of leaves and flowers involved (and how dry and flat they were to begin with). Once ready, the flowers and leaves will be thin and dry, ready to use. They could, for example, be used individually as mementoes or bookmarks, or assembled with glue into ‘pictures’ via a collage, as explained earlier.
Another creative activity involving leaves is simply to represent them in pencil, paint, or other media of a child’s choice. Encourage them to look carefully at the leaf’s shape and detail, so they can try to mimic them in drawn or painted form. Drawing and painting are highly useful skills for children to develop and mastering such skills will prove useful throughout their educational years. If you, as a parent, are good at drawing or painting, perhaps join in the activity too. By doing so, you can show your child what is possible with some close attention to detail and carefully placed lines and strokes. As you build up your own picture, perhaps explain how you are achieving the results, so they can learn from your approach. And — who knows — perhaps you’ll discover that you have a budding artist in the family!
Whether dried, painted, or simply picked as they are, leaves can also be made into other objects, characters, and so on. Some leaves can look like other items, for example, a particular type of tree (the Tulip Tree a.k.a. Yellow-Poplar) has individual leaves shaped rather like t-shirts! Children could look out for these and perhaps paint them in their favourite football team’s colours, draw in legs, arms and a head to make people and — hey presto — they’ve created a person! Similarly, there are several leaves shaped like hearts which, once painted in a suitable colour, can be useful when making greetings cards for birthdays or Valentine’s Day.
Another example of how leaves can represent other things can be illustrated by simple leaves like beech leaves. Each of these looks rather like the shape of a classic flower petal. So, perhaps a child can be encouraged to fan several around in a circle, almost tip to tip, to look like a big flower head. Children can paint the circle in the middle or glue a circle of coloured paper or wool there to represent the centre of the flower. And, if they start with a paper large enough, they could create several of these and make a picture of multiple flowers made of leaves. Use thin twigs, wool, or drawn crayon lines for stems and perhaps longer, thinner leaves to make the flowers’ leaves.
The activity ideas above are just a starting point and there are plenty more that are possible with leaves. Whether it’s dried leaves painted, glued and varnished onto pebbles to form paperweights, dried leaves gently sprayed with perfume to form pot-pourri, or suspended leaves that form a mobile, the possibilities for leaf art are almost endless! We hope our ideas today inspire children to use their imaginations and make some beautiful creations — all with simple, humble leaves.
In addition to being fun and creative, these activities all support the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum for under-fives. EYFS areas supported by the activities include:
Any successful storytelling nook needs to be warm, cosy, quiet and comfortable. That means choosing a corner or recess of some kind in the home that’s away from distractions like TVs and game consoles. Somewhere that’s not used as a thoroughfare by other family members will also help. Wherever you choose, it also needs to be warm. Therefore, somewhere away from draughts is required, so avoid being too close to entrances and exits to the outside. A corner of a quiet room or a tranquil alcove are therefore often ideal spots for your child’s storytelling nook.
Whether reading from a book or creating a new story off the top of one’s head, there’s something that really brings a story to life — being animated and expressive during storytelling, rather like actors might do. That’s true whether it’s the adult or the child telling the story.
Do consider adding a storytelling nook or reading corner to your child’s home. They’re great vehicles for escapism, are incredibly worthwhile, and offer potentially magical experiences for your child. And, if you go the extra mile to make them cosy, immersive and special, they will encourage your child to love reading and creating new adventures using their imagination. Storytelling nooks and reading corners can open up whole new worlds to your child and be a wonderful antidote to electronic screens, gloomy weather, and more limited daylight during winter months. What’s more, they’re a great way for all parties to grow deeper bonds through shared periods of exquisitely immersive, high-quality time.
Children and families, get ready for National Storytelling Week! For 2024, storytelling in the UK is officially celebrated from Saturday the 27th of January to Sunday the 4th of February. It’s a great opportunity for children and families to get creative and to entertain one another through the sharing of stories.
National Storytelling Week couldn’t come at a better time of year. As many across the UK have witnessed in recent weeks, January brings with it cold days, dull skies, and wintery weather. Even the daylight hours are short, limiting the number of activities children can undertake outdoors. With storytelling, however, families can be transported to any number of different locations, situations and climates, all in the blink of an eye. Indeed, storytelling can take children to places and scenarios that would simply not be possible in real life. Such is the power of this art form and the human imagination.
Stories stimulate imaginations;
Another great way to help children create new stories is to encourage them to be inspired by objects around them. For example, a teddy bear, toy character, or picture nearby may inspire them. This can be taken further by providing children with a basket of such props, for example, a toy animal, pine cone, toy crown, goblet, apple, and a rock. A ‘story scrapbook’ can be used by children in a similar way. Such things can significantly help children to become more creative and generate storyline ideas, sequencing, and plot twists.
Watch any infant, toddler or preschooler for just a few minutes and you’ll see that one thing comes naturally to them; play. Indeed, it’s as if they’ve been programmed that way, with the need to play coming instinctively to youngsters, whatever their species. Aside from it simply being great fun, there are a multitude of very good reasons for that — play teaches them an enormous amount about each other, themselves, other living things, cause and effect, and the world around them. It also allows them to learn and fine-tune a whole swathe of new skills as they grow older, play new games, and become more experienced. Add in some careful steering and nurturing during that play from Mum or Dad and they have a real recipe for success. With that in mind, we look today at the key ways in which learning through play profoundly benefits children.
Play and creativity go hand-in-hand. Whether making up a new game, role-playing, constructing, or playing in a den, children will naturally create both scenarios and physical items as part of their play. Such activities teach them how to use their imaginations and to be creative — in a myriad of ways.
Different play activities require different types of movement and physical interaction from children. Indeed, this is a fundamental aspect of play. Whether jumping and running with large movements or carefully constructing with small items like building blocks, children will naturally hone both fine and gross motor skills during play. Such physical skills are essential to their ability to navigate and interact with the world around them and, in the most natural of ways, play is at the heart of enhancing those abilities.
Social skills are also improved through play. Children naturally play with other children and, by so doing, will soon pick up social skills as they begin to better understand social protocols that allow them to succeed both as individuals and in groups. Decent manners, saying please and thank you, cooperation, teamwork and closer bonding are all examples of social skills that can benefit through group play. Other examples include conflict resolution, better sharing, negotiation and communication, which we’ll come to next.
Through all this play, children will be communicating with each other and with any adults that are supervising. As such, play is a great facilitator of communication. Indeed, good communication is essential to most games and, through it, children can cooperate and achieve in ways that will help them in both the short term and into adulthood. Improving communication skills is also a fundamental way to improve success when you think about it.
Mathematics is often embedded into games and pastimes. Children can learn, for example, about adding, subtracting, multiplication and division through games. Even dividing group play into teams requires some fundamental maths to ensure teams are equal in size. Building towers out of blocks is another great example where children can count how many blocks they can stack into a tower before it falls over. They can try to beat their own maximum, or even compete against one another to see who can use the most blocks.
Play comes in a vast array of different forms, shapes, and sizes. Through so doing, it introduces children to countless scenarios, situations, and challenges. By immersing children into such widely differing environments, they learn huge amounts about the world around them, and everything within it. Whether it’s newfound knowledge about a new object, material, place, culture, activity, or something else, play is an amazing conduit to new knowledge and the need to learn new skills. Play is the ultimate educator and the incredible thing is that children may be unaware that they’re learning — they’re having too much fun!
In today’s post, we look at the importance and benefits of periods of ‘quiet time’ for toddlers and children under five. Toddlers are busy little people, often rushing around, going from one toy or activity to the next. They’re at a stage where they realise the world is an exciting place and often want to experience it all at once. However, when they are so ‘on-the-go’, playing and learning from everything and everyone around them, their brains and body have a lot to take in and process. It can be extremely tiring! So, this is where some much-needed quiet time often comes in, bringing with it a whole range of benefits. Studies also back this up.
With so much going on around them, children’s young senses of sight, hearing, touch and smell are experiencing a full-on assault. Their minds are also being challenged with learning new skills. This can all be very tiring for our youngsters, so a period of quiet time will give them a break, to allow them to breathe and unwind.
After prolonged activity or concentration on the part of the child, a well-earned nap may well be on the agenda. As well as giving the toddler a chance to re-charge their batteries, 
Quiet time provides an opportunity for children to develop their own, natural creativity. During quiet time, they have the opportunity to make up a game or activity, without intervention from others. This time is totally unstructured too, so children can be as free as they like to explore and adapt the game or activity. They can create their own little environment and immerse themselves in their own new world. Their imaginations are set free and opportunities to be creative will come naturally.
As we can see above, during quiet time, children can engage in activities that they have chosen for themselves. This can greatly help them to become more independent and self-reliant. That’s a great skill for them to develop as they approach the time to transition to school. There, they will need to rely much more on such skills.
When you first introduce quiet time to your child, start slowly and begin with short periods each day. This can be increased as your little one gets used to it.
Being let loose with coloured paints, art materials and creative opportunities is sure to bring a smile to their faces and a sense of enormous fun, creativity and discovery. No doubt too; they’ll be proud to show others their creations!
As well as being enormous fun, messy play allows children to express themselves in unbounded creative ways. That’s important. Self-expression and creativity will help children to gain a sense of achievement and, through this subtle way, a greater sense of self-worth and confidence.
Hand-eye coordination will also benefit, of course.
We fully understand the many benefits of messy play at Little Cedars Nursery, of course. Indeed, it’s part of the curriculum. Under-fives are encouraged to learn through messy play using an enormous wealth of resources, equipment and materials at the setting. That’s both indoors and in our outside play areas. From paint and paper indoors to sandpits and water play outside, toddlers and preschoolers have a wonderful time with messy play at Little Cedars, all in a safe, structured, fun and educational environment.
Little Cedars is one of 