Art & Learning

 

Creating art gives children a chance to develop all kinds of personal skills & talents

 

As a child develops, they develop the ability to think, to plan, to express their thoughts. Art is a great way to boost this development.

 

Just the simple act of allowing a child to draw regularly allows a child to work through several levels of cognitive development. At first they just makes marks on the paper. Then they become aware of controlling the pen and the marks. Then they start to enjoy the activity physically and visually. Then they start to orient their physical action with intentionality, making lines, then circular scribbles. Then they realize they can try to represent what they see in the world, usually a face first. This process that results in the ability to put an abstraction of a face onto paper prepares their brains for understanding the abstraction of letters and  words.

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We also use music; to change the mood, to promote movenent or relaxation, to stimulate our minds with jazz or the crescendos of classical, to increase our ability to appareciate a wide range of styles. We also have many different instruments; several drums (a little steel drum & an Irish bodhran & a djembe), shakers and a ukelele. We experiment with those from time to time.
 

Music and art are integrated into our everyday life along with math and reading. It's really quite wonderful.We read. We write. We sing. We dance. We play music. We make things from yarn and cloth and paper and all kinds of stuff. We even exlore scientific concepts with art and in other ways.

 

My influence, from work experience and training, are the philosophies of Montessori, Reggio Emilia & Waldorf