Wednesday, May 27, 2015

School Readiness Symposium: The Arts Work in Early Childhood

Author Name: Amanda Kaufman
Library System: Washington County Free Library
Learning Event website: http://www.wolftrap.org/education.aspx

Top 3 things learned:

1. Movement activities for story time, such as going around the circle to create a movement with your name - at the end you've created your own dance as a group, and the mirror game where one person leads the group and they must imitate slow movements as if looking in a mirror.

2. Free resources available from education.wolftrap.org - create a free login account and access resources to implement the arts (drama, music, and dance) into story time and programming.

3. Children naturally learn through art integration - this provides active learning and can reach children with special needs, do not speak English as a first language (or at all), and kids who learn in different ways.

How to implement: 
Many options to implement movement, dance, drama, and music into story times. I've tried to implement the name movement introduction/dance with a story time with mixed results. The kids were very interested in watching me do it, but were shy to participate themselves. I think incorporating more movement and leadership opportunities (allowing kids to lead the group) would get them more comfortable with the idea.

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