http://prefacme.com/2012/01/28/the-prestige-of-art-the-written-word/
Writing, … every body does it differently. No wonder, .. it’s like our signature, special, like the person we are.
Provide the environment to allow children to experience the things they sense, see, hear, touch, smell, taste and do. And allow them to grow as they learn.
Image via Wikipedia
On the topic of cursive writing in schools reminded me of my latest post on Prefacme.
I experimented with Chopin lately as background music for my poems. I play the video along with the poem, and listen to it along with the images. It’s like finding a voice to go with the music.
I’d like to experiment with listening to a piece of classical music and writing my feelings, thoughts and impressions. I look forward to this, and I can’t help thinking, as I put on my teacher’s hat, how valuable this can also be for children.
I’ve had children draw and paint to classical music. And I’ve played it as they relax and play.
Feel free to share how you use classical music in the classroom or/and at home with your family.
Thank you for reading,
Maria Grujicic (Malena)
Hi David, I was actually wondering about dance, and the possibilities. I plan to listen to more of Chopin. I just started to because I realize the emotions felt in my poems go with the music. Do you have the names of pieces you would recommend for dancing? I’d like to give it a go with my next class!
Image by epSos.de via Flickr
My classes are dynamic places of learning because I offer clear variety of choices. I keep certain stations static and change some things with the child present, and try to involve children with making these changes as much as possible. In this way the child feels comfortable with familiarity. Very young children will develop more confidence and in control of their learning when they know where things are. Imagine if every time you entered a shop and the bread was in a different place. How would you feel?
How do I make the choices to change and when? I make observations of how the children interact with the environment. What things are they learning? What things are they interested in? Which things are they neglecting to do? Why? Who do they play with? Do they work alone, or with a friend?
What changes do I make? The furniture arrangement. Are the children able to freely walk from station to station? Do you need more or less tables for certain activities? Are some activities more for outdoors than indoors? Do you need a tap nearby? Do you need the floor space?
The class environment changes as the children’s learning progresses. In our class we changed the dress up corner into our newspaper station. We changed our museum into a radio station. We changed our newspaper station to Santa’s little helpers factory, with the giving tree as a focus. ‘We could also use the giving tree as our advent’s calendar,’ I thought. ‘We could place an ornament for each day of the month of December, and the ornament can be a piece of candy.’ I shared my ideas and observations enthusiastically with the children and asked their opinion during circle time.
For my readers who don’t know how an advent calendar works: Each day of December, before Christmas there is a name drawn, and the child gets to open one ‘door’ of the calendar, and take a present. This is a German tradition, and this is what we used because we were living in Germany.
Another aspect of changing the environment was when I integrated stations to go with the children’s needs. Free drawing, painting, and construction, lay the foundation. These are open-ended activities that I also integrated with set tasks. E.g. Story telling, writing, phonetics, art projects and presentations. Learning is a social experience and opportunities to communicate is essential.
Do you have any ideas on how to set up a classroom for a better learning environment for kids? Feel free to share. What works best for you?
By Maria Grujicic
Image via Wikipedia
Because music is a way to express one’s self, every lesson is unique in its process and outcomes. It is because of the connection made to every child and the human unpredictability of which is explored. This is why music lessons are structured but allow for open-ended results.
Do you have experiences teaching music to share?
By Maria Grujicic
Ultimately music is self expression. It is important when teaching the techniques of music to help children use them to express themselves as individuals. I did some volunteer teaching of beginner brass instrumentalists and young vocalists years ago. I began by having the singers learn the words first, then the rhythm, then the music itself. In this way they learned what was being communicated and it was easier for them to express themselves through another’s compositiion. It was also a lot of fun to have the children make up their own songs. They could “sing” instead of say what they were thinking or doing. My daughter and I still sing our little Walking Song (1, 2, 3, 4, We’re walking down the street…). The idea is to develop their own unique self-expression. It also facilitated learning in other areas, especially speech and language.
I like the way you broke it up so it was easier for the children to understand, and then this possibly gave them the confidence to compose their own music. I did some research on the benefits of singing a while ago- it’s very ‘healthy’ to sing. I’ll try and find out more. It’s so important for the children’s self-esteem and mental well being to be able to express themselves and great for social as well! The benefits are endless. 
Thanks for prompting such discussion, and sharing your experiences! I’d like to hear the song, I wish I could…
Storytelling can be presented in different ways to create richer learning experiences for children. Show a child how to make a puppet. Make it simple and fun, and build on the child’s ideas. Children can do drama plays in a small group using simple props such as a box to represent a boat. The boat that you introduce in the drama play will be the theme for the next book you read to the child, helping her make connections.
Set up a play area and allow children to organize their play within this boundary. As children we had one room where we could set it up for our pretend play. The games we played here were different to the games we played outside, but all games were structured. It isn’t necessary to perform children’s plays, and I like to do a few spontaneous ones until one idea is developed from these. When the time is right, I like to suggest a performance. By this time the children are so confident and happy that they excitedly say, ‘yes!’ In my experience, when a performance is suggested in the beginning stages, the children will feel anxious.
When stories with similar themes are explored, the child feels secure with the consistency this brings. Children enjoy repetition and gain different perspectives when revisiting ideas. They also more readily learn new vocabulary, and this is especially helpful for children with special needs.
I give children time to explore the ideas in the book, before reading it to them. For example, if the theme of the book is on the life cycle of a butterfly, we do creative activities based on it. We play games, tell about our own experiences, draw caterpillars and butterflies, tell our own stories, we act the lifecycle out and so on. Then children will be able to relate to the story more. This is particularly helpful for stories with themes that the children is not familiar with such as about another country, culture, animals, buildings etc.
Once the child learns about a new idea, this idea is repeated in a different way with a new activity. There’s always something new to learn, with the old idea as the consistent part to build from. I allow children time to ask questions, and these drive their learning. I tell children about how much I’m learning from them to develop a sense of two way, cooperative learning.
Thank you for reading,
Maria Grujicic (Malena)
It’s so exciting because the illustrator of my next book, Lena Truper, artist’s name, Lenamare has found a wonderful digital painting program that’s perfect for our first publication together. We’ve decided to co-write a story, in the sense that my writing inspire her art and vice versa.
Self-publishing has been such a wonderful learning experience for me, of which I look forward to sharing with children in my future class. It is self-directing, trial and error, learn as you go, process, which makes it a valuable learning experience.
I have a wealth of ideas circulating on what I’d like to do with children, of which is hard to put into words. For a glimpse of my projects look at http://www.magicaplay.com
http://onelittlecaterpillar.wordpress.com/
I’d like to introduce you to a website link based on my gorgeous recently published picture book, One Little Caterpillar. Be the first to check this book. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. There have been some great comments on it so far and I’m very proud of this recent creation.
“This is really powerful stuff. A metaphor of life for children? I think so, and I think young children will get it. They are a lot more insightful than most people believe. And it’s just plain fun as well. The use of hands is brilliant. Children will use their hands to relate to the story, and that’s an excellent thing. Did you know that the picture of the hands as a butterfly is the image that means butterfly in ASL (American Sign Language)? My youngest is teaching it to me. Hopefully you get the idea: I think you have a classic here!” David W. Aston
“The story sounds almost like a nursery rhyme. I love the illustrations of the caterpillars as hands. The story introduces a way to play as it goes along. I can see small children using their hands as butterflies and caterpillars to go along with the story. It’s very well done.” Jaleesa McLean
“Children will identify with the little caterpillar and its adventures. I agree that children will completely understand the message, and I also like your “begin again” ending!” Lena Truper
My artistic style nicely blends with Radivoje Grujicic’s realistic illustrations. The text is simple, repetitive and effective. It can be read again and again with impressions anew. The story accompanies an expressive chant with matching movements.
I have worked in a variety of educational settings as a teacher, particularly in early childhood. I’m bilingual English and Greek, and learnt Spanish and German in the places I resided. I have a deep interest in children and education, and I have encompassed the most valuable principles of how children best learn into the book. You can read more about my views on education here on this website, and then how I pulled my ideas together to create the book on the One Little Caterpillar website.
When you follow the blog, you can also get the latest Free Downloads & Updates on fun, creative projects based on the story.
Enjoy!
One Little Caterpillar is available on Fastpencil, and on AMAZON along with other online distributors.
ISBN 978-1-60-746633-8
Almost every person I’ve met and spoken to about the topic, has a ‘tiny’ dream in the back of their mind to write and publish a book one day. Well, no wonder… wouldn’t you say, … ? And why? The ‘storytelling culture’ is naturally part of our makeup…
Inspiration Unlimited & A Song For A New Day.
Image by familymwr via Flickr
I just read an article on the online magazine, Inspiration Unlimited that sparked my deepest interest. The writer, Judith Campbell of Switzerland wrote that 20 per cent of our brain power is our conscious mind and 80 percent is our unconscious mind. I don’t want to give too much of the article away, but briefly, your life experiences form your subconscious thoughts about yourself. And by noting things down about your thoughts, makes you more conscious about the beliefs about you.
This interested me because I could relate it to my writing of poetry, of which I feel is beneficial because it delves into the subconscious. By writing these subconscious things down ‘that don’t serve you’ you are able to replace them with positive.
When our subconscious thoughts speak to us, we can address them, and this is why writing poetry is good for emotional health and self-growth. And by creating positive energy, as a result, we can then build better relationships when we begin to see the importance of verbalizing these every moment of the day. I also feel that from this stems appreciation.
Thank you Judith Campbell of Switzerland. I just received my copy of Inspiration Unlimited magazine today, and this is the first article that I read. I look forward to reading more. Look here to get your copy. I look forward to your thoughts.
Maria Grujicic (Malena)
My latest ‘poest’ posed me to ask again ‘what is education’? The question has different responses from people and usually strikes an emotional chord. And why? It could be because we grew up with education and were psychologically touched by it, and it is ingrained in our childhood roots. It is where we can find a part of ourselves.
Research suggests that the adult the child will become is formed in the first 6 years of life. My life, has progressed much more since then and it has been like stages of rebirth. I have learned a lot over the past years about myself, and I feel that this relationship lays the most important foundation for discovery and learning.
And I ask again, ‘what is education?’ Is it something we are fed and try to regurgitate into parts we can use? Or can it be much broader, beyond our imagination, with capabilities to find it or it to find us?
And so we seek to extend our self-concept and build a network of people in adult life who have some things in common with us, just like ‘school’. Though how exciting the broader community of cyberspace can be. Cyberspace breaks the borders, and anything seems possible, expanding the horizons of the impossible, condenses it to the parts we need and want and creates the possible. Who would have thought that I would have found myself here, if you’d ask me a few weeks ago?
And my feeling? I hope that people will join my new circle of self-published writers/authors, illustrators, artists, and poets and create the possible. It’s a web site where we can join together and make a cooperative, social pedestal. The concept started when I learned how to published my own books, and on the way I made some friends.
Thanks for reading,
Malena
Love Chopin, by the way. A teacher I know uses classical music for what she calls “Free Expression Dance.” The children create their own dance movements to express their feelings as they listen to the music. It is a creative process and the results are amazing. She also uses it with developmentally challenged teens. Incredible! At a recital, I saw a high school student the size of a wrestler moving with poise and grace while listening to a chamber piece. Absolutely beautiful.