FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND LANGUAGES SEMESTER JANUARY 2017 HBEC 3403 CREATIVITY IN EARLY CHILDHOOD
MATRICULATION NO
:
901124145358001
IDENTITY CARD NO.
:
901124-14-5358
TELEPHONE NO.
:
017-6886861
E-MAIL
:
[email protected]
LEARNING CENTRE
:
Johor Learning Centre
Table of contents Pages 1.0
Introduction……………………………………………………………………….. 2
2.0
Contents of Creative Centre………………………………………………………. 3 2.1
3.0
4.0
Benefits of Creative Centre……………………………………………………….. 5 3.1
Benefits of Art Centre…………………………………………………….. 5
3.2
Benefits of Dramatic Centre……………………………………………… 6
3.3
Benefits of Music Centre…………………………………………………. 7
Activities in Creative Centre……………………………………………………... 8 4.1
5.0
Learning Materials, Design and Organization of Learning Centre……….. 3
Supermarket Lesson at Dramatic Centre…………………………………. 8
Observation of the children’s level of engagement and creativity during the activity………………………………………………………………… 9
6.0
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………... 12
References………………………………………………………………………………... 13
1.0
Introduction
According to Michael (n.d.), hands-on experience is crucial for young children where they can learn best and enhance children’s creativity during their early years, which is the main reasons that learning centres is a vital part in preschool classroom. Other than that, according to Morrison (2014), active learning is an essential part of constructivism. Active learning means that children construct knowledge through physical and mental activity and that they are actively involved in problem-setting and problem solving activities. Hence, teacher should be consider various factors to set up the best learning centres for their children. For
1
examples, the learning materials in the learning centres, design of the learning centres as well the organization of the learning centres. In this assignment, the learning materials in the learning centres, design of the learning centres as well the organization of the learning centres will be further discuss in this assignment. The assignment observation has been carried in one of the preschool in Singapore which is Carpediem @ Hilltop Pte Ltd. There are various creative learning centres in this preschool which include music learning centre which is known as Beethoven, dramatic learning centre and art learning centre which is known as Picasso. The benefits of all the creative centres for the child development will also be discussed in the assignment. Dramatic learning centre is a great place for children explore on their social and interactions skills. Music learning centre allow children to learn about sounds, pattern, rhythm and also emerging on children’s physical skills. While art centre can may help to improve child visual awareness on different colour, shapes and line. Children improve their fine motor skills and gross motor skills while handling with different types of materials in art centre which will be discussed further in this assignment. Furthermore, teacher need to develop an appropriate activity for children when bringing children to all the learning centres. As children learn about the theme of my world - my community, the activity will be discussed in this assignment would be on the place around their community which is supermarket. The learning centre selected will be dramatic centre where there is trolley, cash register machine and different types of vegetables and fruit for children pretending that they are in the supermarket. The observation on children’s level of engagement and creativity will also be included in this assignment. Last but not least, as an evidence of level of engagement and creativity of children, photos while children carry out their activity will also be included in this assignment. 2.0
Contents of Creative Centre
The learning materials in the learning centres, design of the learning centres as well the organization of the learning centres will be further discuss in this section. These three aspects is crucial aspects that teachers need to look into it. The learning materials have to be age appropriate, non-harmful to children and must be child-friendly. While the design of the learning centres should be attractive and the organization of the learning centre need to be well organized to maximize the child’s learning.
2
2.1
Learning Materials, Design and Organization of Learning Centre
There are numerous learning materials used in the learning centres in Carpe Diem preschool. For music centre, they named it as Beethoven centre. They included a CD player, a keyboard piano and also other different types of musical instruments in the music centre. The musical instruments include egg shaker, xylophone, triangle, castanets and many more. For the design of the music centre, the music centre are surround with mirror on the wall so that children may increase their hand-eye coordination as they can mirror themselves during activities. They provide an ample space in music room so that children would have enough space while carrying out activities in music room. All the electrical socket are install in a child-height position so that children will not reach the electrical socket for safety purposes. All the learning materials are organize properly which different musical instruments are place in different container and label with pictures and also the name of musical instrument. The picture label is main for younger children so that they can recognize which musical instrument to put in which container and they will return the musical instruments in the original place. While for the name of musical instruments, teachers can let older children learn on the names of musical instruments. All the musical instruments are place in the shelf neatly. There are child-size sink with soap and tissue available for children near the dramatic centre to wash their hand frequently to prevent from transmittable germs through the musical instruments in music centre among young children. While in art centre which is known as Picasso centre includes different types of art and craft material which allowed children to explore with different types of materials in the art centre. The learning materials include different colour such as washable paint, crayons and colour pencil. There are also children scissors, art glue available in the art centre. There are also different types of paper materials such as drawing block, origami paper, construction paper, different sizes paper plates and many more. There is sufficient of paint brushes and watercolour palettes provided in the art centre. The craft materials in art centre include googly eyes, craft punch, pipe cleaners, pompoms ball, recycled egg carton, ice cream sticks, sponge, glitters and yarn.
3
All the art and craft materials are organize properly which all the materials are place in container and label with pictures and also the name of the materials. The purpose of labelling same as the purpose in the music centre. There are chairs and tables provided for children so that children have an appropriate play for their art and craft activities or lesson. All the art and craft materials are place in the shelf neatly. Other than that, they do include art and craft apron kid long sleeve bib smock painting for younger children to prevent their school uniform from stain during art and craft activities. There are child-size sink with soap and tissue available for children near the art centre to wash their hand frequently to prevent from transmittable germs among young children. Besides, they are two dramatic learning centres in Carpe Diem @ Hilltop preschool which are pet shop and farm cum supermarket. In pet shop, there are different soft toys of pets such as puppy, kitten and turtle. Children can also match the different types of food for different pet in the dramatic corner. All the toys in pet shop dramatic corner are place in a proper shoe bags to act as the pet carrier and all the included proper labelling. All the materials are placed in a proper shelf which is reachable by children. There are also child-size sink with soap and tissue available for children near the art centre to wash their hand frequently to prevent from transmittable germs among young children. In supermarket dramatic centre they are different types of vegetables, fruits, farm goods included in the dramatic centre. They are also cash register machine, money notes and coins, shopping cart are included in supermarket dramatic centre. They do provide ample space as well for both dramatic centre, all the materials are organize properly and labelled with pictures and names of the items in the dramatic centre. All the dramatic materials are placed in a proper shelf where is reachable by all the children. There are child-size sink with soap and tissue available for children near the dramatic centre to wash their hand frequently to prevent from transmittable germs through the toys in dramatic centre among young children.
3.0
Benefits of Creative Centre
There are numbers of benefits while children carrying their activities in different learning centres. The benefits of different learning centres will be discussed in this chapter.
3.1
Benefits of Art Centre 4
Cuffaro (2011) defined fine motor skills as students’ proficiency in using small motor muscles for tasks such as writing, buttoning or grasping. In art and craft activities children can improve their fine motor skills through activities such tearing papers, painting using paint brushes as well as cutting papers using scissors. Other than that, through art and craft activities in art centre children are able to express their creativity skills. They are able to express their own idea, trying out new things and also exploring themselves changing different types of materials. Teacher should allow children to develop their own creativity by providing children with variety of materials and give them more them to express their own creativity. While sharing materials with their peers, children also manage to improve their problem solving skills and social interaction skills. Children would use words such as please, thank you while they share their art and craft materials with their peers. In addition, children might improve their problem solving skills. For example, if the art centre do not have purple colour children can solve this problem by using blue and red colour to form purple colour. In addition, art and craft activities in the art centre would also help children to build their cognitive development. Art allows children to learn about themselves and the world around them (Upitis, 2011). Cognitive development deals with the maturing of the ability to think and understand (Rohani, 2015). As carrying out activities in the art centre, children manage to learn about the world such as different colours, different sizes and also different shapes. Children are also able to understand the concept of mixing primary colour to form secondary colour. They also experimenting using different types of material and allowed them to understand on different context such as paper are with smooth surface and bubble wraps are with rough surface.
Furthermore, teacher may carry out show and tell activity after the complete their art and craft activities by asking open-ended questions. Through show and tell children may improve vocabulary skills, teacher may encourage children to use different terms such as if children telling lines that they make they may use terms such as straight lines, curves lines, wavy lines and many more.
5
3.2
Benefits of Dramatic Centre
Marie (n.d.) dramatic play can be defined as a type of play where children accept and assign roles, and then act them out. Experts agree that dramatic play is an integral part of a wellrounded preschool program as it is healthy for early childhood development (Sarah, 2017). Children can improve in different development including social and emotional, physical, cognitive as well as language development. For social and emotional development, children who join activities in dramatic play tends to show their empathy as during dramatic play they act as other person. Research by HirshPasek, Golinkoff, Berk and Singer (2009) mentioned that dramatic provides the foundation for forms of self-regulation such as reduced aggression, delay of gratification, civility and empathy. As they are acting as the other person, they are able to put themselves in other’s shoes which means they are able to show their empathy towards others. As they need to cooperate with their peers, children also develop their social skills where they learn to communicate to each other. Besides, children are able to control their emotional when they learn to control their impulses and tend to be less aggressive than children who do not involve themselves in dramatic play. For physical development, fine and gross motor can also be developed through dramatic play. For example, while playing with dolls in the dramatic centre children learn to button and unbutton the dress of the doll. Button and unbutton can help to develop children’s fine motor skills. Another example which children pretend as a police which they run to catch the thief, running may help children to develop their gross motor skills. While for cognitive development, children involved in make-believe play where they have their past experiences’ picture on their mind and they make use of all these pictures in their mind to recreate the scenario during dramatic play. Hence, it is a form of abstract thinking which can be improved their cognitive thinking. Their language development can also be benefit from dramatic play in dramatic centre. Children try to use language to describe what they are doing during dramatic play. As they ask and answer to questions from their peers or teachers during dramatic play, it can help them to promote a good language development.
3.3
Benefits of Music Centre 6
Music learning centre is also another learning centre that helps children in different developmental area. Firstly, music enable children to learn different sounds, rhythm of the music as well as different phases in the song such as fast and slow. One of the nursery rhymes with fast and slow phase are “head, shoulders, knees and toes”. While children singing songs they also develop their language where they learn to pronounce the words in the lyrics and also putting the sentences together. Music can improve a child’s linguistic skills including fluency, pronunciation enunciation and vocabulary (Aquino, 1991). By learning through the song lyrics children are also easily to remember information. For example, toddlers learn their alphabet sequences through the ABC songs. Besides, the different types of musical instruments in the music learning centre allow children to learn new words when teacher introducing different types of musical instruments. Music may also develop children’s motor skills through movement while singing songs. Dancing in the music centre would help children to develop their hand and eye coordination where children tend to follow the dancing steps from their teacher. Dancing are also helps children to control their arm and legs movement. Hand and finger control can also be practised through different nursery rhymes such as “Five Little Ducks” and also “Itsy Bitsy Spider”.
4.0
Activities in Creative Centre
Creative centre are usually a good place where teacher carry out ad-hoc activities after the main lesson in their classroom. The activities that will further explain in this section will be supermarket in the farm dramatic play in dramatic centre.
4.1
Supermarket Lesson at Dramatic Centre 7
Subject Topic Duration of time Integrated Strands Learning Standard Objective
Learning Centre (Dramatic) : Supermarket Dramatic Centre : 10.15-11.00am : Intellectual and Social KD 3.2.1, 3.2.2 1. Children should be able to pretend going to market
or to the grocery store to buy some fruits or other grocery
Values Previous knowledge
2. Children should be able to play cooperatively with their peers. 3. Children should be able to different products and items can be found in supermarket. : Compassion, cooperation : Pupils already learnt about places nearby their neighbourhood which include supermarket. Pupils already learn about purpose of going to supermarket, things or Items can be found in the supermarket. Teaching Aids
Steps
Activities
Set Induction
1. Teacher will introduce to children the “Supermarket Song” by Peter Weatherall 2. Teacher to get children to share their experience of going to supermarket. Let the children dress up and pretend to go to the market to buy some food, or grocery items. Encourage children to name the things they bought from the market/ grocery store. Children are required to to purchase items from money
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
using printed money notes and coins. Step 4
Closure
5.0
Teacher encourage the children to use phrases like “thank you”, “please” and “you’re welcome”. 1. Teacher to recap of items / products we can buy from supermarkets. 2. Teacher to get children to share their experience During their pretend play in the dramatic centre.
Observation of the children’s level of engagement and creativity during the
activity
During the activity at dramatic centre, children are able to show their understanding that they are pretending to buy things from supermarket. They told me that the dramatic centre look alike the scene when they go supermarket with their family. They mentioned that their family members use the shopping trolley cart while they purchase goods from supermarket and one 8
Notes
of the children she pretending that she are mummy pushing the shopping trolley. With these, they do improve their empathy skills where they are able to put themselves in other’s shoes to pretend their roles as daddy or mummy pushing the trolley cart. They also aware that after finish purchase goods from supermarket they will need to pay. One of the children even pretending himself are the cashier busying help the other children for payment. However, as they do not have any prior knowledge on money notes and coins, they do have much expose on the money in the cash register machine. By introducing them the money notes they are able to identify the purpose of using money and different amount of notes that we have. Children are creative as they try to search as paper nearby the dramatic corner pretending that is a wallet as they said that they always see their parents keep money in a bag. They pretend that the paper is a wallet. In addition, children able to expose to different materials and toys in the toys in the dramatic centre. They are able to ask their friend different question such as “shall we get 2 carrots?”, “do we need to buy some eggs?” and “do you like to get some milk”. With these they can improve their social skills where they communicate with each other during the pretend play. They are able to name most of the items in the dramatic centre as stated in the objective in the activity plan earlier on. They are able to recap those items’ name that they know and for items that they do not know and me as a teacher will play my role to introduce the new items to them.
9
Photo 1: Children pretending collecting eggs from farm and prepare for sell
Photo 2: Children pretending as a cashier near cashier counter
10
Photo 3: Children pretending as a mummy pushing the shopping trolley
Photo 3: Children pretending buying milk at supermarket
11
6.0
Conclusion
To conclude, learning centres is beneficial to young children in their different developmental areas. Learning through play is a popular method in early childhood setting in 21 st century, children can learn different types of skills they might not able to get during formal lesson time. Young children might not able to focus on lesson time for long hours as they might get bored. To make lesson more interesting, teachers should incorporate activities in different learning centres. There are different learning centres that may be included in a preschool or childcare centre such as art centre, dramatic centre and music centre. The learning centres should be fully utilise by teacher to bring their children to improve their different developmental area. In art centre, children might benefit in terms of improving their creativity skills, cognitive development as well as vocabulary skills. While in music centre, children may learn about different sounds, rhythm and also explore themselves with different types of musical instruments. In addition, dramatic centre is a great place for children to improve their social and emotional development, to learn on empathy, fine and gross motor skills development and also language development. According to Smith & Pellegrini (2008) sociodramatic play, common from around 3 years of age, is pretend play with others, sustained role taking, and a narrative line. It can involve understanding others’ intent, sophisticated language constructions, and development of (sometimes) novel and intricate story lines. Smith & Pellegrini (2008) also mentioned that children negotiate meanings and roles (“You be daddy, right?”) and argue about appropriate behaviour (“No, you don’t feed the baby like that!”). The different learning centres in Carpediem @ Hilltop preschool make the learning path of young children in the preschool more fun. Children get their chance to learn in different learning centres in the preschool. For example, for language and literacy lesson teacher may incorporate lesson in the dramatic area as it may help children to improve their language while they do their pretend play. The activity chosen in this assignment is in the dramatic area as the current theme in the school was about my community whereby children learn about different places nearby their neighbourhood area. Children use their past experiences of where they went supermarket with their parents to act out the scenario in supermarket. This can help children in terms of cognitive development, which this is their abstract thinking of using their past experiences in the supermarket.
12
References Aquino, F. (1991). Cantos para jugar 1 (Songs for playing 1). Mexico, DF: Trillas. Cuffaro, M. A. (2011). Fine Motor Skills. In Encyclopedia of Child Behavior and Development (pp. 657-657). Springer US. Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R.M., Berk, L.E., & Singer, D.G. (2009). A mandate for playful learning in preschool: Presenting the evidence, New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Marie, E. (n.d.). How Dramatic Play Can Enhance Learning. Retrieved from http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?articleid=751 Michael, C. (n.d.). Early School Readiness Series Preparing Children for Kindergarten: Learning
Centers.
Retrieved
from
https://www.iidc.indiana.edu/styles/iidc/defiles/ECC/LearningCenters.pdf Morrison, G. S. (2014). Early childhood education today. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson, c2014.
Rohani Abdullah. (2015). HBEC1203 Cognitive Development. Malaysia. Open University Malaysia. Sarah Punkoney. (2017). THE INCREDIBLE BENEFITS OF DRAMATIC PLAY. Retrieved from http://stayathomeeducator.com/the-benefits-of-dramatic-play-in-early-childhoodeducation/ Smith, P. K., & Pellegrini, A. (2008). Learning through play. Encyclopedia on early childhood development, 1-6. Upitis, R. (2011). Arts education for the development of the whole child. Toronto, ON: Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario.
13
