Journal of Arts in Early Years of Education (30 Oct 2017)

Journal of Arts in Early Years of Education

Art: 

Art is the Creative expression, unlimited imagination, Mental Representation, 3H coordination (Head, Heart & Hand coordination), Self-Identity, to mingle with others through different means like dance, drama, singing (Performing arts); Painting, drawing, (Fine arts)

{Which I learned/learning from class}

Session-1 (17th & 18th July 2017)

Activities in class on 17th and 18th July 2017

1) Self-Introduction with different styles by all students in class.

2) We discussed why we joined this “Arts in Early Childhood Education” course.

3) Learnt about objectives of the course, etc.

4) Played games with help of the facilitator's instructions 

(Action without words play, dance, jumping, wiping on the floor, Characteristics of the night a play by all people, warm-up exercises, time machine game, fruit salad game, word association play, Painting on the back of the shoulders without using fingers, Senses of art walking by closing eyes, etc.) Games on 31st July- Forming of 1947 number by us, Flag Making, 

5) Said rhymes in different languages

6) Did plays on children & Childhood

7) Saw the videos of how children will perform arts (Singing, playing, etc.) & also some paints of that children. 

My Intervention (Involvement) in class

I gave my self-introduction (Name) by jumping into the class. I made the other mates also jump when my turn came to do some activities, and at the same time, I also followed their actions when they are saying. I said two Telugu rhymes when all are telling rhymes. Why I joined this course means after joining in M.A. Education program, I am learning so many things about art. Art is an Activity that will logicizing the curriculum for psychological being (Child). This helps in learning a lot. I felt very much fascinated towards this & taken this course.

Reflections:

I am fascinated by seeing this course, and I feel glad to be part of this class. I thought that how I can listen to the class from 2:40 to 5:40 PM, but when I entered the context & content in class (Curriculum & Pedagogy is completely different, making me participate in class more consciously & actively). When we are doing new activities we will be more careful, and conscious. This type of curriculum and pedagogy are new to me, which is why I am very much active and conscious in-class activities. The activities helped me to coordinate with others' activities and also helped body and eye coordination between me & others. 

When we are following the instructions of the facilitator, we need to listen first this gives respect to the facilitator, and that respect helps the facilitator to teach well by that we can learn well. When we are doing our self-Introduction I felt a little bit surprised, I think for the 1st time I said my name in a different style, for the first meeting I remembered all my classmates' names (Even though I saw most of them, before the class I don’t know some people names). Because of this different kind of activity I remembered all the names of my classmates.

When we are discussing why we have taken this course, I felt by knowing others' experiences and feeling about art will give some information to the facilitator (Teacher) about what to teach & students feel about what to learn in class. 

Learning about objectives of the Arts in early year’s education. I was fascinated by hearing so many things about art and its objectives through subjective (Individuals). “Objective of Art is the Creative expression, unlimited imagination, Mental Representation, 3H coordination (Head, Heart & Hand coordination), Self-Identity, to mingle with others, through different means such as Dance, singing, role play, acting, painting, drawing, music etc. It is collective experience”

Through art we can get self-identity and they get independency in their work without depending for work on others. Art starts with imitation them it becomes inspiration. Art is Natural instinct (Natural) character for children, we need to understand need of the children. Through this art the children (People) will know about their bodily activities. For art Facilitator is very important, so many are experiencing art through the facilitator. 

When I was playing the art games, I felt game me type of self- identity to myself through some questions (Am I good performer or not, Can I coordinate by body with others etc. questions arises into my mind it happened deliberately when I heard about reflections). 

When we all are playing games in classroom I felt very happy I felt how I can stay for 3 hours lecturing, but when I entered entire scenario has been changed I felt it have to there for some time of course with some breaks in class. Because group work I enjoyed a lot in class. We all started to become little bit creative while we are saying our names in different styles, this type of art education is increasing value of education to me.

While seeing the photos you made to imitate that activities at that time I felt I am as child and enjoyed those games and activities a lot. (I am specially thanking you for making course very beautiful”. (Submitted on 7-Aug-2017)

Session -2 (31st July & 1st August 2017)

Activities in class on 31st July & 1st Aug 2017

1) Self-Introduction with some expressions & actions; Warm up exercises in morning

2) Games: Interacting (Shaking hands) with others when claps are stopped (while we are walking); Making word (T), Numbers (1947), shapes (triangle), home & Indian Flag with our bodies; Fruit salad game; Representing ourselves as a train (Train Game); Making sounds of birds/animals

3) Skit- Our group intervention on skit is “Student reaction on Music class teacher”.

4) Presentations: 

Aditi- Development of representation drawing; 

Farheen & Rencita- Creative and Mental Growth;

Jetha & Digweshwar- Creativity in Elementary Schools;

Vikas & Me- Beginning of Self- Expression- scribbling stage;

Shakoor, Vivek & Vrushab- The meaning of art in the classroom;

Vishnu & Satish- Schematic age

Sukesh- The drawing realism

5) Grade announcement: Grades announced for these all presentations 

My Interventions:

I participated self-introduction & also in playing games in this I joined with whole group to do this activities. When we separated into groups for Skit our group did skit on Student on music class, how teacher treats slow learners & late comers. 

I participated in a skit that related to music class

I with the help of Vikas gave presentation on Scribbling stage- Beginning of Self-expression. 

Reflections:

While playing the games of “Making words, numbers and shapes with bodily activities” I learnt of coordination, for this we need a coordinator to say this is going in right way & this is not happing in properly. We learnt this after experience. For this we need eye & body coordination & also to follow the instructions of the coordinator.

While playing the train game we represented ourselves as a train engine & bogies of the train, I enjoyed, I remembered my childhood days I use to play with my fellow mates, I remembered those memories by thinking about some stations, by representing some places as railway stations.

When we are presenting the presentations & mainly reading the reading I felt the initial days of the childhood is very important for art. Because if we want to go 1000 steps ahead to reach our goal, the route starts under our legs only with single-single steps. To get good art we need to start anywhere child will start from his early childhood only with some scribblings (Fine arts), here they started here just we (Adults) need to guide and facilitate them to reach the 1000th step. Starting is important and developing that is much more important. We can’t reach 1000th step directly, they also can’t be perfect artist at childhood only. They need some time to reach that stage and for this we need to guide & facilitate them based on their interest. 

Most of the presentations “Beginnings of self – Expression, First representation an attempts, Important active creativity in Elementary Schools” these are the early stages. We need to guide and facilitate them.

While listening the grade announcement I was surprised to see “A” grade for my presentation, I felt art is easy subject to learn & also to get grades, but we need to work hard to keep our grades consistently. (17-Aug-2017)

Feedback: Just take a little more time to think of the benefits and impact of the classroom exercises on you.

Session-3 (14-Aug-2017)  

Activities in class on 14th August-2017:

1) Self-introduction with Sofia

2) Listened class with pragmatic activities 

3) Presented presentation through different art works. 

4) Showed different types of Puppet arts in class room. Different types of puppets are Stick puppet, finger puppet, grouse puppets, spring, box, cards, envelops, spoons, socks puppets etc.

5) Saying stories through bodily activities. 

My Interventions 

1) Participated in self-Introduction

2) Listened class on puppets show & activities 

3) Presentation did on cup puppets along with Aditi, Shakoor, Vrushab, etc.  

Reflections:

I know Sofia as a practicum coordinator only, but after your sayings and after listening Sofia class I once again came out from my delimitated thinking. In every individual we can’t see the other dimension without any experience. After experience I changed my perception. I felt shame (not recognizing earlier) & proud (After recognizing) her talent in early childhood education.

She made many different kind of puppets earlier, and showed that in class, I know little bit about puppets, after seeing that puppets I realized that we have many things from than we can make puppets, like cup, socks, spring, stick, etc. 

When she is saying story while bodily activities, and we also imitated that bodily activities (exercises), she was deliberately doing exercises (yoga) made us to do yoga unintentionally. I felt surprised. 

I don’t have any puppet making experience, but for class 1st time I made cup puppets and presented a story by using this chart & cup puppets. I got new experience from this class. 

In every small thing we can find/make the most of the things, which I realized once more through this class.  

Session-4 (11th & 12th Sep- 2017)

Activities & My Interventions in Class on 11th & 12th September- 2017:

1. Introduction to class about himself and also about activities in class 

(Listened his experiences)

2. Introduction: 1- Normal Introduction; Introduction with claps in a rhythm; introduction with some different actions. 

3. Played different Games

a) Speed walking game (with 40, 80, 100 speed forward & backward)

b) Instruction Based Activity (By following Facilitator instructions) (0-Freeze, 1-Sit; 2-slow motion; 3-Do as you like; 4-Run.)

c) Made different objects by using our bodies by forming groups

Interventions: Mixer Grinder with our bodies with Digeswar, Ranjeet, Sukesh & me (One among 4 groups); remaining groups formed themselves as Car, Airplane & mosquito.

d) Ice breaking activities: Jumping in Boxes, All need to sit together at the same time; sitting one after other without intimation. (Intervention in Ice breaking activity)

e) Played a Skit by saying only

f) Constructing stories through individual words. (We constructed a story on Hill trekking guy, with so many twists in stories).

g) Naming the cross people & going into their place (By forming two groups)

h) Shouting their names & going into their place. (By forming two groups)

i) Said all names by forming a circle

Day-2 Games

j) Saying Good Morning to all while walking in different styles.

k) Writing (wrote) our names on air (Small, large & very huge sizes) and it need to understand by others.  

l) Making alphabets through our bodies (By separating all students in two separate groups). Competition between two groups. 

Interventions: We all made A to H letters by forming in two groups. s

m) Making a story by seeing different statues positions from a group.

Intervention: 

n) Saying our favorite food, game and forming according to that favorite item.

4. Sumesh Ji said objectives of these plays

5. Reflection session by all at the end of the session. 

Reflections:

Bringing the guest facilitators & his/her lectures in the classes, always gives an different experiences to the students, here also same thing happened, when the guest lecturer came, I felt happy because of I can get different experiences, your (Asha Ji) words, when you told about him- I know something & he know more things- that time expected more activities from him and that only happened in class. For that I felt happy before class itself.

I am very glad by participating in this course & classes, when I am doing the activities I forgetting the outside world and actively involved the activities. This makes me happy to feel. This activities are making me to create more bond between our classmates,

This make me to feel happy regarding my future, because this may the children also in making bond between them (children), the bonding between the friends make children to learn effectively. 

Ice-breaking activities happened like a competition, I enjoyed while playing, but competition made me to feel frustrate little bit. When I will do this kind of ice breaking activities, those who lose the activity they may feel shy that why I need to engage that children in other activities. They may not feel frustrate.

 

When we are making ourselves as objects (Mixer grinder), alphabets and numbers, I felt leadership and accountability is needed for the making the things successful, I want appreciate Farheen for taking the responsibility as a leader.

When we are constructing stories through single sentences, I laughed a lot by their (my) creative sentences in changing the content of the story. We are making this activity we need to be creative & make them to be creative, then they learn more things very happily. 

 

When we are playing the fruit bowl game, I got a chance to know the interest of my fellow mates, we need to conduct this kind of activities for making the bond between the children. By that they can learn comfortably from their parents. 

Even though we know of all our classmates’ names, we are saying the names flowy we taking 5 second back to say the name. I need to maintain good contact with other classmates. 

In this two classes I forgotten about my world and actively involved in the all activities. I connected these activities to my future activities. I became the child while I participating in class.   

Session-5 (18th & 19th Sep- 2017) 

Activities & My Interventions in Class on 18th &19th September- 2017:

1) Recap of the unit-1 Understanding art as a pedagogic tool (What we have done till now)

I noted down some important points in the classroom.

2) Warm-up activities with rhythm

Along with everyone I also participated in the activities.

3) Cap making by us with help of Vishnu Pareek. 

We all made the caps & kept them on our heads for a long time

4) Presentations were done by two groups 

a) Gandhi Nai-thalim by Sukesh, Indira & Vrushab

b) Sybil Marshall by Aditi & Jetha

c) NCF-2005 by Ranjeet & Me

d) Piaget “Arts education & child psychology” by Digeswar & Rencita

e) Folk arts & childhood by Pratiksha & Farheen

f) Devi Prasad reading by Satish & Sikha

5) Discussion on the practicum-related works

6) Presentation act on different themes (Emotions & anger) of children.

We presented on the sexual harassment theme along with Indira, Pratiksha, Vrushab, Jetha, & shakoor. 

7) Segregated us into different groups for art mela. 

a) Indira, Me, Vikas, Rencita, Satish & Ranjeet

Reflections:

Literally I am coming (came) for the arts class for the bodily activities only, I forget about reading, writings assignments. When you are recapping the unit-1 I started recalling the main theme of this course. Usually when I am in class I will not think about theory. 

I also participated in warming up activities, it is a usual activity but same feel good experiences came doing the participation. We all made caps by following Vishnu pareek’s instructions. I was surprised after making different types of caps with single paper in a process. 

I like the Sukesh’s group presentation on Gandhi Nai-thalim, I recalled how western education impacted us. I felt happy in way of presenting presentation they told more than I heard from class. I and Ranjeet gave presentation on NCF on art education, but I am not satisfied with my presentation we just prepared before only two days. When Pratiksha & Farheen did folk arts and childhood I felt fascinated by seeing Indian diversified culture. 

Later we discussed on practicum work, what we did in our practicum, for upcoming practicum also we discussed, it helped like a pre plan for my practicum visit. 

We as group did a drama on sexual harassment on same sex, 

Session-6 (25th & 26th Sep- 2017) 

Activities & My Interventions in Class on 25th & 26th September- 2017:

Day-1

1) Imaginative scenes

a) Travelling in metro (Interventions- Some people standard on the train, some are sitting, some are holding hanger, etc. madam asked us what you are doing. I standard in the train)

b) How child behave when s/he want ice-cream (Intervention- I behaved like a child who don’t have money, but having a desire to eat ice-cream)

c) How Child behave in classroom (Intervention- I am sitting in the classroom, writing the class notes)

d) How you feel when you alone in jungle (Intervention- Feeling fear because of wild animals)

e) Walking like an animal and flying like a bird (Intervention- Just followed the madam’s instructions and behaved like elephant and bird etc.)

2) Play with Dupatta (Intervention- We need to cross dupatta creatively)

3) Remaining Presentation (Intervention- I just listened the presentations)

a) Vishnu Presentation- Tagore on arts education

b) Shakoor- Rajasthan culture of arts

c) Vikas & Vivek- Eisner What can education learn from arts 

4) Story based activity on Bird by song (We followed the madam’s instructions we said the story of bird)

5) Discussions for art mela (I am with the art and craft group, we planned to organize some themes for art mela, I have selected clay part, vikas selected mask making part etc.)

6) Asha Madam’s research presentation

7) Imaginative paint on others body (Me & jetha are in pair, by using our body as a paint brush we painted on others body)

Day-2

1) Warming up activities (Shaking hands, legs, etc. walked around the classroom etc.)

2) Laughing exercises (Laughing)

3) Eye exercises (eye exercise by using finger)

4) Fingers exercise (Ungli Songs)

5) Drama on teachers bad behaviour which we experienced in our school days

6) Watched arts of the school children

7) Watched the research pics from Pooja Madam

Reflections:

Playing the games like imaginative behaving games like going in metro train, staying alone in jungle, behaviour in class, walking like animal, flying like a bird etc. made to relax mentally, and also get chance to remember those past memories. I like the Vishnu’s Rabindranath Tagore presentation a lot, in most of education thinkers are more focusing on empirical knowledge than abstract knowledge, I understanding the value of empirical knowledge with guidance of abstract knowledge. While you are instructing, singing I felt that, in class majority people knows Hindi (even though their mother tongue is not Hindi), before this course I doubt my Hindi, but I am able to understand Hindi better than past & I am also learning Hindi by this Medium of arts class. I am very happy for this unity (adjustment) in diversity. We started discussing/planning about art mela. Eye, Finger and laughing exercises are fine. Children visual arts paints, craft, dabbling are very creative. When doing drama on teacher’s bad behaviour I felt I may also behave badly in class, if children are naughty in classroom. I need to learn to with patience while teaching. I need to talk with them in sensitive diplomatic way.  

Session-7 (9th & 10th Oct- 2017) 

Activities & My Interventions in Class on 9th & 10th Oct- 2017:

Day-1

1) Mirror game- we all formed different pair groups and played this game (what my pair mate do that only I also need to do)

2) Paint touch game- Need to show feelings like surprise, happiness, peacefulness, angry with same pair mate.

3) Writing/drawing in air- Writing star, triangle & circle symbols on the air.

4) Organizing activities and group discussions for art mela. 

5) Watched portfolio of our seniors

6) Asha Madam’s presentations on “Brain made simple”

Day-2

1) Planning for art mela

a) How to interact with teacher

b) Use of Daily reflections in art mela

2) Warming up activities

a) Legs and hands movement, 

b) Introducing ourselves to others when claps stopped

3) Situational analysis through drama by forming two different groups

a) Teacher training session with art involvement

b) Interviewing teachers 

4) Discussion on Adults art for children, Art to teach concept, Art to understand mind. 

Reflections:

There is lots of fun is there in mirror game activity, when we are touching others on back, when we touched by others we get some laugh generally in games, but in creative activities using elbows, legs, hand, when I see others get laughing. Every time I use enjoy a lot by watching this activity, when I am doing this activity with opposite gender, I will become more conscious about their feelings, and I am not interested in touching, more boys also without touching the girls they are doing this activity. I am not doing activities which I am conditioned by my culture. 

Warming activities in morning makes me free my body loosely. 

This week we all mostly dedicated to preparations, planning, organising for art mela. We (art-craft) batch organised ourselves in different activities which we are going to do in school. Madam also organised us in different groups for pre-art mela. (Based on this we people met three times for pre-preparations for art mela). 

I am excited & tensed by all these pre-planning activities. I got tense because how I can manage teachers and children while doing activities in school. I am eager to feel the new experience from this art mela. Situation analysis through drama is a very new and different experience to me. Sitting for the interview and explaining my objectives, and rationale is very useful to me, I am interested in art, I also want to teach the children in an artistic way. This activity is a pre-experience for me before doing my job. By seeing our senior’s batch portfolio I got some Ideas for my portfolio.