Week 6 Reflection

In this week's class we discussed the importance of doing art as a way of expressing one's self and art being about the process rather than the end product. We did an activity which required us to draw symbols that reflected what we believe is important to us, and what represents us.

The reading emphasised that art is not just about making and doing, and art is a powerful tool through which children are able to establish a sense of self and a sense of belonging. The reading also championed art's ability to support culturally valued knowledge and make connections between families and communities. Furthermore, I found interesting that the reading noted that an "emotionally and physically supportive environment" (Wright, 2012, p40) is essential in order for students to be comfortable to express themselves artistically.

Ideas by theorist Ken Robinson support the need for expression of self and individualism in education. Robinson believed that art education allowed time for personal development and self expression, and is often overlooked as being a non intellectual subject, as it does not meet traditional academic values, (Fleming, 2008). This is a concept that is extremely important to remember as an educator. When asking children to do activities such as drawing their family, or drawing themselves, we are asking him to reflect upon who they believe and see them selves to be and portray that in a visual sense. Teachers need to see the importance of such activities and be supportive and emotionally aware while doing such activities with young learners.



Art Experience:

Ask children to have a look at artwork by famous Wassily Kandinsky.

 Ages 4-5

Responding:

Students are asked open ended questions to respond to the art work such as;
- Can you describe the sort of colours used?
- How do the colours in this art make you feel?
- How is line and shape used?
- Is there any movement in this painting? What makes you think that there is some movement?
- What do you think the artist was trying to depict? Why?
- Students are prompted to use art elements and principles to describe the artwork

Making:
 Students are given:
- Primary colours acrylic paint
- Long handle paint brushes
- A3 size paper (3 sheets each)
- Paint palettes
- Children are told to make their own colours by mixing paint on palettes.

Students are asked to paint three different moods that they have felt before. This can include happy, sad, scared, worried, excited etc. Children are encouraged to look at colour use by Kandinsky and use of shape and line to inspire their own artwork.

Week 5 Reflection

In this week’s lesson we were able to manipulate clay and form sculptors from clay of different body parts after looking at some work by Henry Moore.

Clay is a fantastic medium through which young learners can create visual artwork that is communicative in some way. This week’s reading emphasizes the role of art work as a way of expressing child’s lives and interests and for them to tell others what they see and how they think.

The reading emphasised how art experiences, and specifically art experiences using clay, can be a great form of expression for children to react and comment on the world around them. Clay can be used when students are in various phases of development. Younger children in Piaget's manipulative stage can simply move clay around and familiarise themselves with its texture and properties.  As children “begin to build on their understandings about communication, symbols and symbol making" (McArdle 2012), clay can be a new and exciting medium for children to use to create art that is symbolic and meaningful to them. 

Specific teaching is required in order for children to express their ideas, emotions and opinions through visual arts. It is essential that the teachers connect communication and visual arts together so children understand that it is a way to communicate and express. Clay is a great way for students to do so.

It is important to let the children experiment with clay, and let them know that they do not always have to focus on an end product, but can just create shapes just to learn to manipulate the clay. This sort of 'play' or 'artistic freedom' is supported by Dewey's theories regarding education, which championed the teacher's role of that a guide, rather than a task master (Garrison, 2012). 

Art Experience:

Ages 4-5

Responding:
Have the children study these clay sculptures by a local Mexican artist.
Ask the students open ended questions such as, where do you think the sculpted people are from? What do you think they are doing? Why do you think these sculptures were made?

Making:

Materials - Clay
Ask children to make a clay model of something that represents something special about themselves. 

This allows students to express themselves and express their identity and sense of self through a visual arts experience. 

Week 4 Reflection

This week's class introduced the notion of IT and it's role in the visual arts and visual arts education for early learners. We explored this as a class by using photography to evoke feelings and express opinions of issues we believed were important.

Theorist, John Dewey believed that a teacher must support the student with learning that meets the social needs of a community and is relevant to current society (Garrison, 2012).

The importance of relevant and educational IT and media experiences has never been so important today, where our homes and schools are saturated with various forms of IT and media. It is essential that teachers in an early childhood setting are experimenting with technology and allow their students to do the same.

For younger learners, who are just in the manipulative stage of visual arts development, as according to Piaget, allowing them to use a simple IT program such as paint and play around with the different textures and different colours and shapes they can create can be a valuable experience (Wright, 2012). Furthermore, when children move into the symbolic stage computer programs can be used to manipulate at first, basic symbols such as circles, squares, rectangles, triangles, on programs such as Word, Paint or Photoshop, with guided assistance with early learning educators. Through such programs, educators can show students how IT can be a way or tool used for people to express themselves and express artwork, emotions, feelings and opinions.

Arts Experience:
Ages 4-5

Responding:

-          Have students view pictures of Steve McCurry’s portrait photographs.

       -          Ask students how Steve McCurry might of taken these photographs
       -          Ask children how close the photographer would have been to the people in the photographs.
       -          Ask the children how the people in the photographs feel and where they might be in the world.
- Ask the children about the types of colours used and what the focal point of the photograph is.

Making:

- Phone with a camera (and a filter program)
- Printer

In small groups of 3 ask students to use a phone camera to take a portrait photograph of a person in their group or one of the educators. The children are then helped to choose filters and edit their photograph on the phones and then these images are printed for the children to look at.

Week 3 Reflectoin

This week’s trip to the NGV was very inspiring and reinforced the importance of having child accessible spaces in galleries so that younger minds can get as much out of visiting a gallery as an adult . I was particularly interested in the range in types and styles of artwork open to the public at the NGV, it was definitely a space where children could thrive on new and exciting visual artwork.

This week’s reading emphasized the community’s role in creating and fostering a love and education of art for young learners. The text notes that there is a large scope of programs “offering something for everyone and every budget” (Wright, 2012, p14) . We certainly saw that when we visited the NGV’s children’s art area where animation in particular was used to create an interactive space in Melbourne’s city that offered an enriching and engaging arts experience for children, that was free for all.

According to educational theorist John Dewey, in order for a child to learn, interest is the greatest motive (Garrison, 2012). Allowing children the opportunity to view artwork in a gallery can develop inspiration and a love for art which can then translate into their own artwork, a powerful learning device.

Vygotsky theorizes that children can only reach their full level of potential development (or zone of proximal development (ZPD)) when they are surrounded and supported by more expert learners, (Wright, 2012). This shows the key role that adults play in cultural art experiences for children. This should be considered greatly when working with early years students, as introducing students to community classes, other art teachers, local and international artists etc.. can have a huge impact on their social cultural/art education.


  Art Experience:
- Ages 5 years

Responding:
- Show children a piece of work that was displayed at the gallery.
For example, Tom Robert's Shearing of the Rams
- Ask open ended questions about what is going on in the picture
- Ask children what catches their eye in the picture
- Ask children what types of colours and textures and lines that are used in the picture



- Ask children to describe the colours, shapes, patterns, and objects (if any) that were in the painting.  

Making:
- Acrylic paints
- Palettes
- Brushes
- Paper

Ask children to draw and paint something or somewhere that represents Australia to them. Can be somewhere nearby or somewhere local. Can include Australian animals etc..

Week 2 Reflection

The reading from this week really emphasized the function of the narrative in visual arts. It discussed how stories, emotions and feelings can be conveyed and expressed through children’s art work. The reading suggested that the arts allow children to explore feelings, emotions and ideas in a safe space which can help them make sense of the world and express themselves. I found this a very important idea to consider, when considering the value and importance of visual arts education and experiences for young children.

I was surprised and enlightened to learn how much children actually get out of visual arts experiences. During our class we discussed how important it is to engage with children before an art experience by exposing them to artists that use techniques that they might be using as part of their art experience. The videos I watched were in relation to asking children to examine and explore pieces of artwork and consider what they understand and interpret of different artworks. This can provide as a good introductory exercise to engage children and create a bit of context and inspiration before children go and do their own artwork using techniques, materials and equipment similar to those used in the artwork that they had explored earlier. Open ended questions may include; What materials can you see used, why do you think this artwork is called what it is, how does this piece of art make you feel etc.. It was interesting to actually do this our selves, as we explored Matisse’s The Snail and then used a similar technique of collaging to create our own artwork. I think it was good for us to work through this exercise and see the value of it ourselves, as stated in our text, it is important that educators have done the activities that they set up for learners to do, (Wright, 2012).

Art Experience:

Ages 4-5

Responding:
- Have students look at landscape watercolour paintings done by artist Alvaro Castagnet. Have them look at the colours and brushstrokes.

- Talk about the art elements and principles used
- Ask students open ended questions about the what they can see
- Ask children about what mood they feel when they look at the painting.




Making:
- Watercolours
- Paint Brush
- A3 Paper
- Students are asked to paint a scene of a place that is important to them or that they enjoy being at. Eg. Beach, grandparent's house etc..

Week 1 Reflection

This week’s workshop really taught me the important of creative early childhood art experiences and introduced ways of doing so appropriately.
Specifically I became aware of the various values of visual arts, in particular expressing feelings, communication and representation of culture and society are some of many reasons why visual arts is a valuable experience for young children. I also learnt the relevance of Piaget’s theory of development with regard to visual arts. First, children learn how to manipulate through discovery and experimentation. Then they start to symbolize different parts of their life and learn that symbols can represent real life people/objects/actions. Following this they start to draw things as they actually appear, which is the representational phase. Consideration of this theory of development can help with planning useful visual arts experiences for students. For example, in a kindergarten setting, simply letting children experience, experiment and explore with different art equipment can be really useful and helpful for a child’s development.

This week’s reading supported some of the topics and notions discussed in the workshop. For example Wright also raises the fact that art can help evoke emotions and build a line of communication, “art has the power to affect our mood, empower us, make us feel dumb or student, help us make friends, learn, connect”, (Wright, 2012). I found this a very important notion to consider and understand when understanding the importance and value of visual arts experiences for early childhood learners.

Art Experience

- Ages 2 to 3 Students are given materials and told to experiment and play with them and see how they can be manipulated. The teacher does not tell the children to paint something in particular. Students are given complete freedom.

- Primary colours in the form of paint
- Paper
- Long brushes
- Sponges

 Responding:
Teacher's Support:
- This uses Piaget's theory of development as it is allowing children in their manipulative stage to discover and experiment with materials and media.
- Also uses Dewey's theory children should be given freedom and allowed to exercise expression in educational settings and not be confined by tasks set out by educators.