CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
1. Plan appropriate visual arts experiences for young children.
2. Plan appropriate music and movement experiences for young children.
3. Plan appropriate dramatic experiences for young children.
4. Explain ways to integrate the arts into content-area experiences.
5. Plan for collaborating with arts specialists in your building.
6. Plan arts experiences for children with special needs.
7. Plan arts experiences that celebrate diversity.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
1. Creativity is the impulse to extend beyond the present with originality, imagination, and fantasy.
A) Creativity is inhibited by evaluation, particular teachers' comparisons of children's work with an external standard.
B) The arts
i. Integrate childrenŐs experiences and learning
ii. Personalize education
C) Art projects are the major focus of Reggio Emilia
D) Arts are an essential, but often neglected, part of educational settings.
2. Visual arts are graphic arts using colors in either 2 or 3 dimensions.
A) There are predictable stages in the development of children's visual representations.
i. Scribbling begins at about 13 months when children start using writing implements to mark paper, and usual form zigzagging lines.
ii. During the preschematic stage (from four to seven years) children use lines and circles to represent people, animals and objects. Order is random and not realistic.
iii. The schematic stage (from seven to nine years) involves repetition of several similar forms arranged on a baseline on the page, but perspective is not constant.
iv. Drawing realism (beginning at nine years) describes more detailed, smaller drawings. Children in this stage may be more self-conscious and self-evaluative.
B) Evaluation of children's art can be descriptive or developmental.
i. Descriptive evaluation should evaluate the following:
a) The materials and context of development
b) The visible elements of the image
c) The concept the image represents
d) The organization of the image
e) The function (what the image is about)
f) The source of the idea.
ii. Developmental evaluation describes formative changes in children's art (see Table 13.1).
a) Preschool children (two to five years) experiment with different forms and effects, emphasizing their actions over their products.
b) Early Primary children (four to five years) develop preferred recognizable representations but fail to put those representations in context.
c) Middle Primary children (five to eight years) use formulaic details in increasingly narrative pictures, often involving see-through houses.
C) Training does not affect when children acquire drawing skills, but does change their vocabulary and ability to distinguish artistic styles. Teachers can foster this by discussing art and their own perceptions of art.
D) Appropriate goals for visual arts include exploration of pleasurable activities involving color, shape and texture, self-expression and fine motor practice.
E) Art activities
i. Graphic arts should emphasize the child's own products and choices. Worksheets and activities copying shapes can make children feel inadequate.
ii. Painting at easels provides different motor and media experiences than table work. Different paint application techniques can also be explored.
iii. Printing and stamping begins with simple prints, which should be mastered around kindergarten. Older children can combine different prints or use mixed media.
iv. Clay should be regularly available, but other sculpting media should be also be used. v. Collage offers unique opportunities to compare textures and arrangements.
vi. Sewing and weaving can be adapted for children of all ages.
vii. Mixed media activities can be engaging and innovative, but should incorporate art procedures that are familiar to children.
viii. Children of all ages should have repeated opportunities to view and discuss fine art.
ix. Unlike art, which has no product goal, crafts require children to produce similar or identical products.
a) Craft activities can be appropriate to make gifts or decorations, if children have a choice about participation.
b) Crafts should not b replace art activities.
c) Cut-and-past activities replicating a teacher model are neither art nor craft but simply teach children to follow directions.
3. Early childhood music experiences should include teaching children to sing tunefully, experiment with sound as a method of self-expression and listen to different kinds of music.
A) The National Association for Music Education proposes the following guidelines. (More information can be found on its website: http://www.menc.org/).
i. Children bring their diverse backgrounds and personal experiences to the learning of music.
ii. Music experiences should include musical sounds, activities, instruments or other materials (e.g. scarves).
iii. Children have musical potential and therefore need effective adult models to develop their skills (i.e. scaffolding).
iv. Music experiences should follow the same quality criteria as other early childhood programs (e.g., encourage critical thinking, de-emphasize performance goals).