Clever Little Crafters is a two-year (August 1, 2023, to July 31, 2025) interdisciplinary research and development project with a focus on researching and developing versatile craft education within early childhood education in Swedish early childhood education in Finland. The project is financed by Brita Maria Renlund Memorial Foundation and the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland.

The project name reflects our perception that young children have the will, capacity, and curiosity to play, process and design in varied materials to make discoveries, find their own solutions, communicate, and express themselves. This type of creative material activity is nurturing and developing, both physically, mentally, and socially. Being clever is seen as a positive attribute for a craftsperson.

The aim of the project is to develop existing and new operating models for versatile craft education in early childhood education. Another goal is to research the conditions for and further deepen knowledge about the implementation of craft education. By operational models, we mean, among other things, how teachers can develop their knowledge of craft education regarding thematic and subject technology content, physical organization, material resources and didactic supervision.

The project is carried out as a multi-professional interdisciplinary collaboration, with the influence of action research and interactive follow-up research, between staff in crafts science and early childhood education at Åbo Akademi University, as well as staff and children in day care centres in Swedish Finland linked to the university. The collaboration creates and consolidates operating models that enable children to test, explore and express themselves in a safe environment and under expert guidance using both soft and hard craft materials and techniques.

The project will result in documented activity models, scientific articles, and research results.