Week 12 Reflection

This week was our final week of classes, and we were able to finalise and perform our short productions for each other in groups of 3-5. It was incredible to watch what other groups had come up with, and see how different groups interpreted and addressed the criteria and how we all came up with something quite different, yet entertaining. Terry asked us to go around and say what we thought was a positive thing to take away from the experience of having little time, resources and planning to come up with a production for fellow classmates. Here are a few positive attributes that people shared/came to mind:

-       This activity allowed us to exercise team work, cooperation and delegating of tasks
- This activity pushed us out of our comfort zones in a safe and supportive environment with people we knew.

-       It gave us exposure to music from different genres that we would not of listened to/engaged with otherwise eg. Rococo, Baroque

-       Terry acted as more of a guide rather than a supervisor. He did not really give us set limits or guides as to how our performances were supposed to be and allowed us to exercise a lot of freedom and free choice when it came to our small productions.

There are a lot of benefits from this activity that we can take away and use as early childhood educators.

This week’s reading talks about the ‘being’ aspects and learning opportunities for young children through art experiences. Wright notes that childhood is a time to make meaning of one’s world, and children often take what they know and see in their world and incorporate this into their artistic doings. The text notes that children often make meaning of their world through “modeling, immersion, copying and visulaisation” (Wright, 2011, p40). The text also talks about the concept that art experiences are not about the finished product. It is isn’t about being able to perfectly play a piece of music, or dance perfectly to a song, rather, it is about the process of engaging, developing and growing through dance, music, drama etc… I thought that this is a really interesting point, as normally in school we focus on perfecting something so that the end product is the best it can be, rather than focusing on the journey we take and how we grow/develop as we reach there. This is something to really consider as a future educator, and a way of teaching and approaching learning about the arts.

Activity:
Ages 3-4

Break children up into groups of 3-4. Give each group a different story that they know well. For example, three little pigs, red riding hood, goldilocks and the three bears etc. 

Ask them to come up with a way of telling the rest of the children the story and let them know that they can use singing, drama, percussion instruments or simply narration.

Allow children a whole afternoon to decide/come up with a way to retell their well-known story and ask them to perform it for the class.

Given that the children are 3-4, assistance and guidance and support will be needed to be given to make sure they are on the right track! However, children shouldn't be told explicitly how to retell their story. Benefits of this include, creativity, play, freedom, teamwork, interpretation, developing confidence