Encouraging creativity through art is of key importance when creating new and different ideas, expressing imagination, spending quality time, and improving the quality of life (Knoll, 2011). It activates the child's intellectual, emotional, and motivational processes (Kroflič in Gobec, 1995). Municipality of Ljubljana contributes to spending quality time of summer holidays, with co-financing free time and preventive programs for children from the first to the fifth grade of the primary school with permanent residence in the area of the Municipality of Ljubljana. They try to enable different activities for children during their summer holidays, with emphasis on sport activities, development of creativity, active participation in different workshops, encouraging of research work and providing quality spent time based on the principle of equal opportunities (Invitation to tender for co-financing of programs and/or projects in Municipality of Ljubljana in the year 2016 at the area of services in upbringing, education, and free time of children, 2015). In this research paper, I have focused on the aspect of creativity and wanted to explore, how the contractors of the summer day care include creativity in their programs. M. Oven (personal communication, 12th of September 2017), higher counsellor at the Department for pre-school upbringing and education at MOL, thinks that creativity is the driving force of social progress, which is exactly why it is included as one of the goals they are following when co-financing the programs.
The first part of the research was meant to check and analyse the applications for the invitation to tender for Summer holidays day care of children or teenagers with activities during the school break. I have researched how often the creative activities have been included, their sensibility, usage of different methods, goal setting, and implementation of age differentiation. I have found out that notices about creative activities are very limited. Only a few contractors plan activities in detail, and include different methods, age differentiation and clear stated goals.
The purpose of the second part of the research was to gain the opinions of the contractors for summer day care, children who attended the day care and the responsible person at the municipality. I have looked at inclusion, planning, and experiencing creative activities. The contractors, who gave their opinion, are familiar with the term and try their best to include as many different creative activities as possible. The children were satisfied with the creative activities, but have pointed out that the activities are only executed in some art fields. Senior counsellor at the Department for pre-school education at Municipality of Ljubljana has confirmed that some applicants may not master writing the applications and describing the program, however, this does not mean that they are not providing quality programs. Therefore, they holistically examine each application.
In the third part of the thesis, I have planned a program, which would encourage connecting musical creativity with other artistic areas (painting, dancing, and drama) in various ways. The program includes 5 activities, which follow each other in a meaningful order and each of which can be carried out in one day of holiday care. B. Sicherl - Kafol (2015) points out that professional and didactic skills of the teacher, understanding of goals and procedures of work, meaningful planning, and integration of processes, skills, knowledge and content that stimulate learning from different perspectives with good execution and evaluation of work, are necessary when planning cross-curricular activities. With such work, we encourage the transfer of emotions, opinions, and motivation, which enable lifelong learning and therefore creative working of children in different circumstances.
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