In her essay, Creativity and Children, Sabrina Young highlights several benefits to enabling such artistic opportunities. In addition to increasing fine motor skill function by learning how to cut with scissors for the first time, learning how to draw, or attempting to control a paintbrush's strokes on canvas, Young insists that it also improves a child's problem solving skills. "A child wants to recreate a happy memory visually. These thoughts may run through the child's head: "Should I use crayons, pencils or magazine cut-outs? What kind of paper should I use? The glue is not working properly, what will work better? Art encourages basic and advanced problem solving skills in a variety of contexts." Thus, in the process of increasing a child's vocabulary, art also helps to improve social skills, opening up group discussions about how to conceive ideas on paper. Parents and carers can communicate with their children better by talking about how and why an art piece was created. They can also share in the creative process, by taking the time to paint or draw with them.

According to a study published in the American School Board Journal and researched by the renowned Kenneth A. Wesson, the arts develop brain function, spacial reasoning, visualization, fine motor skills and several other critical skills for development. "Exciting new research consistently indicates a strong correlation between the arts, cognitive development and academic success," said Wesson, an international consultant on neuroscience and education. Each of the six areas of learning development within the Foundation Stage are therefore viewed as equally important, by virtue of their interdependence.

As a retailer, the benefit of stocking a range of art and craft materials cannot be emphasised enough. Parents have become very clued up about child development in recent years, thanks to programmes like Robert Winston's Child of Our Time looking at the ways in which we can help our children to discover and adapt to a range of environments. It would be great if in addition to shopping for all the pre-school necessities, parents could have a ‘one-stop shop' in which leisure time materials could also be purchased. With increasing pressure on consumer budgets, you would no doubt do a roaring trade in materials that offer hours of fun for the entire family in the home environment.