Acquaintance with Pets through Art - Essay Example

?Learning About Pets through the Arts While waiting for their parents to pick them up from the centre one day, the of four-year old children saw Ellen’s mother walking a dog outside of our center garden to the gate. The children gathered on the other side of the fence and close the dog and asked Ellen’s mother so many questions about the dog like “How come he is so furry?”, “What does he eat?”, “Does he like ice cream?”, and finally, “Is it ok to touch him?” Ellen’s mother was gracious enough to answer their questions and allowed them to pet the dog. I was listening intently to their questioning and noticed how much they were interested about learning about the dog. This went on the following day when I noticed Rob drawing a dog on a leash and a bird on a cage. When I asked about his picture, Rob answered, “I just looove animals!” In the playground, Gina, Michelle and Jason were on their fours, trying to catch each other. I later learned that they were pretending to be a pack of dogs. When the parents came for their children that afternoon, I asked if they had pets at home. Rob’s mother said he had a canary bird. Gina’s and Jason’s mothers said they had dogs at home, and Jason’s mother said he was given a turtle by his aunt for his birthday. I recognized that tapping this interest in pets when planning their learning experiences in the arts would be a good move on my part. Young children enjoy the arts. It is an experience where they can express themselves. During their free play, the arts may play an active role in the curriculum because it holds is essentially interesting and fun for them, so this may be the best time that teachers can observe them to gather information on what they enjoy doing and learning from. Since early childhood education should be based on the child’s interests and abilities, the arts can serve as the gateway that allows educators to enter and know about their world from their own perspective. As McArdle says (2008), “the arts can enable children to make their thinking visible, and provide teachers and researchers with rich data and information about young children” (p. 372). Since they delight music, dance, visual arts and drama as observed from their behaviours in these areas, engaging them in such experiences will guide the teacher to plan others which they may also enjoy while honing their skills. Wright (1997) asserts that because the arts involve non-verbal, symbolic ways of knowing, thinking and communicating, it becomes a powerful means of promoting learning for young children especially since their language skills have not yet been mastered (Wright, 2012). Aside from taking the children’s interests in consideration, the early childhood curriculum should also adhere to Te Whariki’s principles of empowerment, holistic development, family and community and relationships as well as the strands and goals that fall under each (Ministry of Education, 1996). Outcomes of Nga Toi or The Arts include the development of abilities in identifying their own emotional responses and those of others and representing these in their art (Mana Atua); understanding links between their early childhood settings and the real world as well as they discover unfamiliar people, images, objects, languages, sounds, smells and tastes which are far different from the ones they know (Mana Whenua); developing abilities and interests in a wide variety of domains that build their skills and strengths (Mana Tangata); experiencing stories and symbols of their own culture and discovering and developing different ways to be creative/ expressive (Mana Reo); building confidence and a repertoire for symbolic, pretend or dramatic play; coming up with strategies for exploring their worlds with their bodies, tools and materials in order to extend their skills; building confidence in movement activities; and representing these discoveries with creative and expressive media and technology (Mana Aoturoa) (Ministry of Education, 2009). With the theme of Pets identified as the children’s current interest, I might be able to respond to this interest by planning learning experiences in the arts that may include making animal sounds and imitating their movements for music and dance experiences; painting and making dough sculptures of pets for visual art experiences and role playing stories about pets for drama experiences. These experiences address the developmental needs and capture the interest of the children since the ideas should have originated from them and can just be adopted by the teacher in planning the curriculum. For musical experiences, Haines & Gerber (2000) explain that four-year olds are already able to order, classify and reproduce sounds, tones and rhythmic patterns vocally and with instruments as well as use such skills in the expression of their ideas through stories or songs. This is because they can already discriminate differences among source, volume, pitch and duration of sounds. These elements are used in possible experiences for music such as finger plays, rhythmic chants and action songs about pets. I might ask them to create simple songs from their own verbalizations and add some tunes and adopt the appropriate volume and pitch according to the pet they are depicting. The children may insert pet sounds such as the barking of a dog, the purring of a cat or the chirping of the bird. Dramatic activities excite young children as they take on a role to play that may be vastly different from their own personality. Batt (2001) contends that most of the time, children are more comfortable in group roles that they do simultaneously with each other. However, some children are capable of taking on individual roles too. Warren (1999) cautions teachers against using gender-specific terminology so children are not limited to play roles according to expectations for that gender. Caring for pets is one topic that is not selective of gender, as girls, as well as boys can care for animals. Laying out some story books about pets, I will observe which story they prefer and request for me to read. We could read this story together then discuss their ideas on what we can focus on in our dramatic play. They can choose their roles and plan how their movements, gestures and facial expressions and voice to depict their character. For example in a play about animals, a child who chooses the role of a happy rabbit can choose to be jumping and smiling the whole time and using a high-pitched voice and talks fast. Drama experiences may be accompanied by Dance. Stinson (1988) discussed that children need to have awareness of their bodies and the movements they can do within the space available to them. This awareness helps them express themselves better as they walk, run, leap, gallop, skip, jump, hop, shake, twist, crawl, etc. while moving like the animals of their choice. They can choose the energy level they can adopt to match it to the animal, like expending low energy in depicting a turtle and a higher level of energy when dancing around like a puppy. The children could break into groups and choose a pet to create a dance for and each group can share their ideas and collaborate on the dance movements and possible song or sound accompaniment. When each group is done, they can come together and show their classmates the dance they have co-created. Visual arts is a common favorite of young children because it is a ‘hands-on’ experience. Since children delight in engaging their senses while learning, visual arts present an interesting experience for them because of its sensorial feature. A possible visual arts experience that the children may engage in would be the creation of props or costumes for their animal roles. Loughran (2001) emphasized that children gain more learning with personal construction rather than through the teacher’s direct instruction and that hands-on, multisensory experiences as well as active exploration of materials and ideas provide multiple benefits. Hence, in immersing the children in an environment with several stimulating materials about pets, they can easily explore how their characters look like. What I can do is surround the children with pictures of animals, especially those they have chosen to portray in the dramatic play so they get familiar with the shape, texture of the animal. When they draw their pet character on paper, they may be guided as to which direction their lines go – horizontal, vertical or diagonal. Should they use wavy, soft or jagged lines to outline some of the animal’s body parts? When they create the costume with art materials, would they be making a rough, smooth, bumpy, fuzzy, prickly, slippery, scaly or soft animal covering, and which particular materials can they use to make the animal look that way? Providing them with an abundance of art materials may get their imagination going as they use visual art to communicate their ideas to others effectively (Pohio, 2006). After creating their props or costumes, they can use these for their dramatic presentation. It can be their adaptation of the story we read, or they can infuse their own ideas in the story like changing some parts to suit themselves. Learning experiences about pets may be enriched by engaging in the Arts. Revisiting their artistic experiences will help them retain concepts and skills learned they learned which helps them appreciate it better. Learning experiences in music, drama, dance and visual arts experiences planned together with them will hopefully yield the positive outcomes as outlined in the Te Whariki curriculum. Having such productive experiences at a very young age will surely enhance children’s knowledge and skills which will come in handy as they grow. References Batt, T. (2001). Taking on roles. In Imagined worlds: A journey through the expressive arts in early childhood (pp. 21–25). Auckland, New Zealand: New Zealand Playcentre Publications. Haines, B. J. E., & Gerber, L. L. (2000). Children and music. In Leading young children to music: A resource for teachers (pp. 3–16). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill. Loughran, S. (2001). An artist among young artists: A lesson for teachers. Childhood Education, 77(4), 204–208. McArdle, F. (2008). The arts and staying cool. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 9(4), 365–374. Ministry of Education. (1996). Te Whariki: He whariki matauranga mo nga mokopuna o Aotearoa: Early childhood curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media. Ministry of Education. (2009). The arts: Nga toi. In Kei tua o te pae: Assessment for learning; Early childhood exemplars (Vol. 19, p. 31). Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media. Pohio, L. (2006). Visual art: A powerful medium for promoting peer collaboration in early childhood contexts. Early Education, 40 (Spring/Summer) 7–10. Stinson, S. (1988). Dance for young children: Finding the magic in movement. Reston, VA: The American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance. Warren, K. (1999). Setting the stage: Topic, role and focus. In Hooked on drama: The theory and practice of drama in early childhood (pp. 7–20). Katoomba, NSW, Australia: Social Science Press. Wright, S. (1997). Learning how to learn: The arts as a core in an emergent curriculum. Childhood Education, International Focus Issue, 73(6), 361–366. Wright, S. (2012). Children, meaning making and the arts. (2nd ed.). Frenchs Forest, Australia: Pearson Australia. Read More