Dance, Visual Arts, Music, Poetry and Drama Education in the Primary Classroom

Creative Experiences With Music
*The examples are very illustrative of how say pattern or rhythm are in all arts, and how that can be taught, explored, thought about. Then exploring how that can be used to create a mood.
*The blurring of the edges with other art forms, and how easy it is to implement this with a thematic approach.
*Learning about history (or other cultures) is much more immersive if there is music, art, painting, literature, sculpture, cooking, clothing, types of theatre, architecture etc

I already implement themes, I find something the children are interested in and we learn about it together, listen to music, make drawings, do cooking etc. I think we like to look at a thing as complete as we are able (they are young yet). I really like the ideas that are presented in lesson format here, it makes me feel like I've been robbing them of music! We certainly do make music, but not with the theory backing it up, so now I'm going to try implementing pattern, tone, rhythm into it, and encourage the children to make music, and use it across the arts, ie, make a poem/paint a picture or draw one that interelates.

Poetry Immersion.
*to get 'poetry back into our bones' (Tom Romanov page 46) and to get the sense and the music of the poem requires 2 readings (Eve Merriam, page 47 quoted from in Copeland 1933, 122).
*to have them read poetry, and find that natural rhythm and to preform it
*knowing when to stop is as important as knowing when to edit

I love poetry. It really is in my bones, I'd just forgotten about it. Really, above everything else, I am a poet. I got a bit jaded about writing poetry. No one around me loved it like I did, I thought to myself that poetry had indeed died, and that I'd never make a career with it. I have to realise that is not true. I certainly do not want to pass this down to the children. I'm going to read poetry aloud to them everyday, not just children's books to them (which is a daily event for us, and has been since they were babes). I'm going to just read them poetry, poetry I love, that I've written and if they choose to write a poem, I'll be glad and happy for it. I'm going to buy that book The Random House Book of Poetry for Children, I'm going to read it to them and showing them that I love poetry will hopefully allow them to embrace and exprience the passion I have for it. Even if it were true (that no one likes poetry anymore) I would love to share it within my own family anyway. Its nice to know I was wrong! After they are immersed in poetry, then I'll let it evolve from there.

Dance: The Most Ancient of Arts
*dance as language, movements as symbols as a vehicle of communication thought and feeling.
These are: pattern, line, form, shape, time, rhythm and energy (obviously links with music and drama, but all arts, and in the overall curriculum maths and social science.
*For the most ancient of the arts it is unfortunately deemed the least essential art, and that is pathetic. This to me is wrong and it should have a place of equal standing. It would go a long way in encourage healthy attitudes and bodies, I imagine.
*Encouragement for expressions through dance via the use of literature and music.
Personally, the only dancing I got to do in school was square dancing and ball room dancing. I didn't enjoy it, it was boring and repetitive and meaningless to me. Ironically, I now love to dance. I dance to many kinds of music, some of which I like only to dance to and others I like to listen to as well. I don't dance so much to express concepts, its for pure enjoyment really. I don't want this to happen to my children. I already put music on for them and encourage them to dance, but now I see I need to imbue it with meaning, get them to think about it more and to try and convey and express through non-verbal means like gesture, movement and expression.


'Encouraging play and creative drama in the classrom.'
*not impose your will onto the children, let it evolve naturally and allow them to have control
*socio-dramatic play = higher form of social play. to allow it to be meaningful for the children and for children to be aware of others similarites and differences. Eventually this becomes creative expression. (imagination and creativity, pantomime, improvisation and children's theatre are all forms of children's drama).
*Children can learn more language usage more effectively by free play than during formal teaching sessions (particularly special or disadvantaged children).

Drama is important for learning about the world and taking on roles and characters. Putting oneself in another's shoes. Again, drama can be a vehicle for organic, naturalistic learning. Allowing for the child to experiment, and control their interpretations and learning experience will be more enjoyable and memorable. My children role-play all the time, they pretend to be characters from movies they've watched, characters out of books. My toddler is fun! He loves to run around 'being' dinosaurs and 'eating' people. This sometimes spills out into the other children, and they all pretend to be dinosaurs and they think about how they can act, what they would eat, and how they should sound. This is an early version of what they should be doing. To encourage literacy, I might ask them to dramatise a book for me. What they have done already is quite good in regards to Studio Ghibli work though (looking for dust sprites/bunnies) which is also looking at another's culture and history as well. I like the idea of improvisation. I used to rather enjoy doing Theatre Sports (not in school - it wasn't done there). I'm sure they could get a whole lot of fun and learning out of that. I am considering sending my eldest to theatre workshops as she seem orientated in this way.

'The artful classrom: Management and organisation'.
*Art is not merely entertainment, it involves a depth of thought, good planning and solving problems, looking at other's work and discussion! It can be paralleled with learning to read and write, and just as essential. Again- Art as Language!
*Environment must be conducive to work, the children's work should be on display, areas dedicated to learning, areas for movement and areas for contemplation.
*Art is a process

The sensory display ideas for math/science are wonderful. I'm going to do this! Actually I've done a few things like this, I kept the skeleton of a leather jacket that my toddler had caught at a fishing trip, it sat in the window and eventually bleached white. Discussions surrounded those old bones! Art work was made, and thoughts were provacative. I think this is a great idea! What I have going for me is a small space, really, but a huge backyard. Some of these activities will have to be done outside! Painting and other 'messy' art and craft activities, some of our science are done at the kitchen table and in the bathroom. Drawing is done everywhere, even in the van. We've done work with charcoal recently, they were drawing birds, and some of the work was quite amazing, considering they'd never used these materials before. Would I ever love more space though! We study at the table, and we have our computer areas for research and learning. The children use art programs on the computer. This is the area of strength for us. Dante, 7, is very artistically creative, he has been drawing as soon as he could pick up an pencil he started making marks. However, I know we can do better in the sense that they can learn more about what they are doing, learn the language (which I had always assumed they were too young to learn). I also intend to get them to conceptualise and plan out their work before attempting it. We do have a mini-gallery space in the hallway, which is great! The children put up their own work in their bedrooms too, and I display their work on my blog. They love this and always want to see how their work has 'turned out' being online. I am encouraging them to set up their own.
*We do promote safe behaviour* and try and use non-toxic items (in the case of doing the charcoal drawings, I was the one who sprayed the setter on.) They use safe scissors and clag and paints etc (except for scrapbooking - they use archival quality paints and glues).

Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences Theory
Gardner asserts that there are 7 intelligences. These being linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, body-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal and intrapersonal. The ones that relate specifically to the arts are linguistic, body-kinesthetic, music and spatial. These are not stand alone, everyone is suppose to possess them to one degree or another.
However there are some gifted in one area to the detriment to other areas. They do interact/blur, for instance mathematical and musical appear to have strong links, spatial to body-kinesthetic.
Children obviously have these forms of intelligence, some intelligences are naturally stronger than others, and unfortunately the traditional form of education is more about analytical scientific and ligusitical types of intelligence, and therefore not suited so well to those who learn differently. Creating a more arts-based curriculum, in theory, will provide a greater chance of catching children with differing learning styles and intelligences and offering them another approach at learning.