Non Digital Entry “Dinosaur that lived in a Bottle”.

    

This morning I noticed children talking amongst themselves that there is a big dinosaur in a book next to our science corner. There is lot of dinosaurs and in there. “Dinosaur say’s J”. “There is a dinosaur eating on that tree and my mum bought it” D tells me in a low voice. “Don’t touch it”, “only use your looking eyes”.  Then I noticed S looking at the book about hungry dinosaur. According to Roberson (1989), “Visual arts is a graphic or symbolic language and is a vehicle where children express ideas, understanding, imagination, observations, and feelings” (p.154).

Strategies used in the dinosaur interest were to do activities that would increase the children’s knowledge on the life of a dinosaur.  Why it is importance to plan an activity and follow it through with the children. I also learnt that it is important to seek help from children and other teachers and their opinions are important to. 

 I recognized that  this new interest stimulated the children’s interest in dinosaur more than before; this led to a lot of questioning from the children  “What is it” “Where it came from” “What happens to the dinosaur”  and   responded by discussing about how to take care of this dinosaur. I with the help of the children and other teachers made a big volcano as it was  the interest of the children too. An egg with a baby dinosaur was placed in the volcano cone. The children were so amazed to see it come out when i added vinegar to baking soda which was inside the cone of the vocano.  I placed the dinosaur the science corner in bottle full of water. The dinosaur grew slowly and slowly and children checked it every morning to see how big it grew.

WHAT COMES NEXT

Furthermore   children playing on the deck made dinosaur out of dough.  Recognizing this interest in children I made more play dough and children responded by making more baby dinosaur. Where to now I guess?? “Aunty we want to make dinosaur that dance said J”. Among the obvious, like creativity and such, has list of other important educational values of play dough: Development of fine motor skills (important for handwriting which is educational (Robertson 1989).

WHERE IT LEAD TO FOR CHILDREN.

 Finally Dance (Ti Kanikani) is seen as “a highly personal exploration and expression of self, or feelings and our evolving of the world.  I notice children wanted to do dinosaur dance. “We want to do dinosaur dance,” The children said I recognized this interest in children and responded by turning the tape recorder on teacher helped me put dinosaur costumes on children. I asked the children “what the dinosaur does?” and the children respond by swaying from side to side.  The children were dancing and I was dancing with them, as a “facilitator and role model, both in terms of demonstration and enjoyment and creativity” (Dunn, 2004 p. 30).  Through dance children gain body awareness and experience relationship to thing or other people: the dance, they could gain awareness of the body part and also develop spatial awareness skills (Robertson, 1989).

Doing a non digital creative project with the children the evaluation of effectiveness I learnt that is very important to plan according to children’s interest. Learning through creative process can help children to develop skills and confidence with the processes of learning by doing in art and craft and creativity (Isenberg & Jolongo, 2010). Time management and proper planning is very important too.

Reference List

Dunn, J. (2003). Linking drama education and dramatic play in the early childhood years. In S. Wrights (Ed.) Children, meaning-making and the arts: Australian: Person Education.

Isenberg, J., & Jalongo, M. (2010). Creative thinking and art-based learning: (5th Ed). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, United States of America: Pearson Education.

    Robertson, J. (2000). Drawing: making thinking visible. In W. Schiller (Ed.), Thinking through the arts: Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Press.