ARTS-BASED PRESCHOOL
written by Linda Reimond Lawrence Arts Center Arts-Based Preschool Director
The Lawrence Arts Center Arts-Based Preschool is for children ages 3-5 and provides social, motor, and creative experiences that excite love for learning. Music, sculpture, painting, drawing, and creative movement are integral parts of this exciting program. Through rich and varied experiences with the arts in combination with a sound preschool education, children grow in both self-esteem and intellectual ability. The Lawrence Arts Center Arts-Based Preschool curriculum allows students the opportunity to work with professional artists, actors, dancers, and musicians; attend performances; and create in the ceramics studio. Lots of fun, lots of love, and lots of good arts experiences that nurture creative thinking, decision making, imagination, and art appreciation. FINANCIAL AID is available throughout the year. Download an application on our website, www.lawrenceartscenter.org, or request a copy at the front desk.
Dramatic play We encourage children to participate in dramatic play in the “dramatic play—playhouse” area, by acting out stories, and by attending performances or dress rehearsals in one of two Lawrence Arts Center theaters. Creative dramatic play, for example, in the playhouse, grocery store, doctor’s office, or post office provides children unparalleled opportunities to use their imaginations and play “as if” something were true. The intellectual development that this ignites cannot be overemphasized. Pretend play also encourages children to think up ideas and try them out—all in the risk-free safety of “let’s pretend.” Usually pretend play involves more than one child at a time and contains a lot of role assigning and role assuming. Three year olds tend to play a simple version of “house,” but 4 year olds love Besides to embellish the premises with dogs, cartoon characters, naughty children, and more. These activities develop lanencouraging guage because children will discuss and describe among themselves what is happening. This allows self-expression, creativity and physical activity, and interaction with others.
innovation, the arts
Acting out stories, fairy tales, and nursery rhymes teaches empathy literature/storytelling, communication, co-opera- foster our sense of tion and sharing, problem solving skills, and creative thinking. Children have the opportunity to become someone humanity. or something else, express emotions, and take a risk. This process facilitates the maturation of the brain and is especially important for enhancing student learning. Reading, counting, speaking, and problem-solving are all maturation correlated. Play improves the process. By attending performances, children gain an appreciation for the arts. Exposure to concerts, plays, dance, and puppetry allow children to experience being in an audience and appreciate the art form. Time spent playing make-believe actually helps children develop a critical cognitive skill called executive function. Executive function has a number of different elements, but a central one is the ability to self-regulate. Kids with good self-regulation are able to control their emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exert self-control and discipline. Children who are able to manage their feelings and pay attention are better able to learn. Read more about this at ihttp://www.npr.org/templates/story/story. php?storyId=19212514 in an article titled Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills from Feb.21, 2008.
This information was compiled from several sources: National Public Radio Arts with the Brain in Mind by Eric Jensen The Whole Child Developmental Education for the Early Years by Joanne Hendrick The Praeger Handbook of Learning and the Brain edited by Sheryl Feinstein Search Institute “Developmental Assets”
The “Junque” box
—as Fancy Nancy would say, “That’s a fancy word for trash.”
There could not be a better way to stimulate problem solving and creative thinking than giving children of any age—even adults—a box or collection of “loose parts.” This is an opportunity to “make it work” without being right or wrong. This is also an opportunity to discover mathematical or scientific concepts that make an invention happen. Math and science concepts include, but are not limited to, how glue or tape works—what works better for different things; balance and spatial relationships; textures—how things feel. In addition to the academic concepts children explore, creativity blossoms. The opportunity to take a risk, to try something new, to make “my” ideas work needs this time to develop. One of the Multiple Intelligences in Howard Gardner’s Theory is spatial intelligence, the ability to form a mental model of a spatial world and to be able to maneuver and operate using that model. Sailors, engineers, surgeons, sculptors, and painters, to name just a few examples, all have highly developed spatial intelligence. Building with all kinds of blocks and creative manipulative toys; creating sculptures from wood, styrofoam, or boxes, and taking apart old appliances, children are sharpening these skills at their developmental level. This is an example of indirect learning—learning through discovery.
Praise and “good job” Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College in New York, and considered one of the most thoughtful educators in America, says what we should be rewarding is: curiosity, creativity, taking risks, taking the subjects that you’re afraid you’re going to fail, working hard on those subjects, even if you do fail. We should reward children when they show joy in learning. And maybe we should even applaud them when they color outside the lines if they say I love it that way. We know it is important for children, and adults also, to feel good about themselves. Praising children for their accomplishments is important, but how and why we do it is important as well. And just what does “good job” mean? How about being more specific i.e.—“you helped get the table ready for dinner, thank you.” “Look how you helped put away your toys.” “Look at the different lines you made with your paint brushes.” “You made a new color with your paints. How did you do that?” “I bet you are proud of yourself.” When children ask me, “Do you like it?” My answer back is, “Do you like it?” or “Which way do you like it best?” as I’m turning the paper from vertical to horizontal. I do not want children to do this to please me. I want the motivation to be intrinsic (from within them). This is very hard to do, it’s so easy to just say “good job” even without looking at the child or what they are doing. What happens if children have to be rewarded or praised for every little thing or become too dependent on it?
Repetition Why do our classes consistently have paints, paper, crayons, markers, easels, the “Junque Box,” and areas for dramatic play? Why do we repeat activities and use the same materials? Why do some children walk at age 10 months, some at 12 months, some at15 months? Why don’t all children talk at the same age? Because everyone is different, even siblings, and each develops at his or her own pace and in her or his own way. Repetition may seem boring to an adult, but children learn from repetition. Just as they will listen to the same song or story over and over until you think you will lose your mind, so too, will they paint on plain white paper for what seems like an eternity, always making vastly different pictures. Although the materials do not change, the child will. Each new approach to old materials comes with a different perspec“You cannot use tive and a greater storehouse of knowledge. These early art activities are your child’s first steps in problem solving up creativity. The and independent thinking. They free your child for later intellectual development, just as the first tentative steps in more you use, the walking allow your child to run later.
more you have.”
Children need to experience all five of the major mediums of art: drawing, painting, collage, printmaking, and — Maya Angelou, sculpture. Scribbling and free-drawing experiments are probably the most important art activities in which a child Words of Hope and can engage. Through age four, children go through what Courage art educators call the scribbling stage. Scribbling includes all of the hand and arm movements needed later in writing and is an essential activity for all children. The “back to basics” movement so popular in education circles talks about reading, writing, and arithmetic, but long before children get to that they are scribbling, painting, gluing, and sculpting. Those are the real basics that contribute to the mental and physical development that makes the other skills possible later on. Lots of repetition will be necessary before a child’s skills become automatic. An activity must be repeated many times to firm up our nervous system’s networks for proficiency. We expand knowledge and understanding with repetition, as well as gain confidence. These are some of the goals we have for our children. I personally believe this is a reason that visitors to our arts-based preschool tell me they see children thoroughly engaged in whatever they have chosen to do.
This information was compiled from several sources: Your Child’s Growing Mind by Jane M. Healy Young at Art by Susan Striker Arts Beginning in Childhood” by Education Committee of Success By 6
“Process” rather than product The art and creative experiences we plan emphasize the process (which is continued development involving many changes) of doing the activities rather than a particular product. This helps children not to be frustrated by expectations of certain results. The children’s spontaneous, creative self-expression increases their sense of competence and well-being now and into adulthood. Our open-ended materials, i.e. clay, paint, tools for drawing and writing, blocks, and the “junque box,” etc. are particularly effective because they have no predetermined use.
Outdoor play — aka recess Physical activity prepares the brain for learning by increasing oxygen and glucose to feed the brain nutrients and by integrating, organizing, and energizing key components of brain function. I was fortunate to hear Richard Louv, the author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature- Deficit Disorder speak recently. Louv’s work emphasizes the need to be outdoors. As our society has become more complex, there remains a need for every child to feel the sun and wind on his or her cheek and engage in self-paced play. Following are a few benefits of outdoor play from a statement by the National Association of Early childhood specialists in state Departments of Education titled Recess and the Importance of Play.
The visual arts teach us to see,
Play is an active form of learning that unites the mind, body, and spirit. Until at least the age of 9, children’s learning occurs best when the whole self is involved.
music teaches us to listen,
Play reduces the tension that often comes with having to achieve or needing to learn. In play, adults do not interfere and children relax.
dance teaches us to move with joy,
Children express and work out emotional aspects of everyday experiences through unstructured play.
and drama and literature teach us to see through other people’s eyes.
Children permitted to play freely with peers develop skills for seeing things through another person’s point of view — cooperating, helping, sharing, and solving problems. The development of children’s perceptual abilities may suffer when so much of their experience is through computers, books, worksheets, and media that require only two senses. The senses of smell, touch, and taste, and the sense motion through space are powerful modes of learning.
Children who are less restricted in their access to the outdoors gain competence in moving through the larger world. Developmentally, they should gain the ability to navigate their immediate environs (in safety) and lay the foundation for the courage that will enable them eventually to lead their own lives.
Art and science: a perfect mix QUESTION: What goes up, comes down with a “splat,” and prints? ANSWER: A sock filled with sand and dropped from a ladder. And it creates an interesting piece of artwork. What makes this so special? It is a creative art activity but also a science experiment. The only thing different with the sandfilled sock dropping from a ladder and Galileo dropping objects from a building in the 1500s is that Galileo probably didn’t have paint on the objects he dropped. And a child would not say that he/she studied physics at school that day because he/she created the sock-drop painting. Legendary early childhood educator Bev Bos stated, “science is elemental play. Science is in every area of a school, art is basic science, music is science and blocks are science. Most of all science is fun and breathtaking for children.” Skills are learned best through active and creative activities. Creativity exists in the arts, science, and math.
ARTS-BASED PRESCHOOL VISIT 940 New Hampshire Street Lawrence, Kansas 66044 BROWSE www.lawrenceartscenter.org CALL 785.843.2787