Prosodic, Postmodern Picture Books as Playful Mediators for Facilitating Ideation, Improvisation, and Expressive Language in Early Childhood

Early childhood should be filled with opportunities to develop creative thinking in playful, engaging ways, both formally and informally. Yet general misconceptions about creativity often lead educators to either ignore or dissuade creative behavior while current high stakes testing in schools impacts priorities in early childhood programs. This action research aims to offer a playful practice using the postmodern picture book Charlie Parker Played Bebop as a mediator for facilitating creative thinking between adults and children in early childhood. An increase in expressive language, original ideas, the evolution of their quality, and the deepening of their meaning, were visible in the combination of quantitative and qualitative data, demonstrating the potential for facilitating creative thinking in the context of adult-child relationships in early childhood programs.