Thinking Through Making: Supporting Children’s Inquiry Through Visual Arts in Early Childhood Education

Abstract

Inquiry-based approaches in early childhood education recognise the visual arts as a vital mode of thinking, enabling children to theorise, represent, and make meaning through material and sensory exploration. However, integrating the arts meaningfully within inquiry can be complex, and teachers may find this difficult to navigate. This article draws on findings from a multi-year collaborative research project conducted across six early childhood settings in Aotearoa New Zealand, examining how inquiry-based approaches were interpreted in practice. The study identifies the visual arts and material exploration as multimodal pathways for children’s theorising, reflection, and community connection, grounded in relationships with local people, places, and materials. Building on these insights, the article proposes a framework, Thinking Through Visual Inquiry, which conceptualises how the visual arts support inquiry as a relational, recursive, and evolving process. The framework includes two articulations, one for infants and toddlers, and one for young children, highlighting how artistic processes function as modes of thinking across phases of inquiry. Rather than a prescriptive model, the framework offers a way of understanding how artistic processes sustain thinking, relationships, and community within inquiry-based learning.