Pearson New International Edition The Creative Arts: A Process Approach for Teachers and Children Linda Edwards Fifth Edition International_PCL_TP.indd 1 7/29/13 11:23 AM ISBN 10: 1-292-04126-9 ISBN 13: 978-1-292-04126-1 Pearson Education Limited Edinburgh Gate Harlow Essex CM20 2JE England and Associated Companies throughout the world Visit us on the World Wide Web at: www.pearsoned.co.uk © Pearson Education Limited 2014 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. All trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. The use of any trademark in this text does not vest in the author or publisher any trademark ownership rights in such trademarks, nor does the use of such trademarks imply any affi liation with or endorsement of this book by such owners. ISBN 10: 1-292-04126-9 ISBN 10: 1-269-37450-8 ISBN 13: 978-1-292-04126-1 ISBN 13: 978-1-269-37450-7 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Printed in the United States of America Copyright_Pg_7_24.indd 1 7/29/13 11:28 AM 11122222223615934567882648204420786 P E A R S O N C U S T O M L I B R AR Y Table of Contents 1. Beginning the Journey Linda Carol Edwards 2 2. Understanding the Creative Process Linda Carol Edwards 38 3. Introducing Music and Movement Linda Carol Edwards 66 4. Celebrating the Visual Arts Linda Carol Edwards 116 5. Encouraging Play and Creative Drama in the Classroom Linda Carol Edwards 154 6. Experimenting with Three-Dimensional Art Linda Carol Edwards 198 7. Beginning a New Adventure Linda Carol Edwards 232 Appendix: Literature Linda Carol Edwards 240 Appendix: Music Linda Carol Edwards 254 Appendix: Fingerplays Linda Carol Edwards 264 Appendix: Additional Guided Imagery Scripts and Extension Activities Linda Carol Edwards 272 References Linda Carol Edwards 280 Index 287 I This page intentionally left blank c h a Beginning the p t e Journey r o n e There are five essential elements which are needed for any society to survive and thrive: Truth, Beauty, Adventure, Art, and Peace. Godfrey,1992 From Chapter 1 of The Creative Arts: A Process Approach for Teachers and Children, 5/e. Linda Carol 2 Edwards. Copyright © 2010 by Pearson Education. Published by Merrill. All rights reserved. Chapter 1 Lien captures her favorite activity, “swimming in the ocean,” by moving her paint-filled brush across the flat surface of the paper. A few days later, she creates an ocean and a dolphin from a formless lump of clay. When her teacher tells the class that they are listening to a recording of George Frideric Handel’s “Water Music,” this same five-year-old moves about the room leaping and diving. She explains to her teacher that she is a dolphin swimming alongside a sailboat, splashing water on the people aboard. In each case, Lien is using the visual and performing arts to explore ways of expressing her feelings and sensory experiences in tangible, symbolic form. This child is making a conscious effort to arrange colors and shapes, sounds and movement, and other sensory phenomena to communicate her ideas and feelings about herself and what she knows about the world. Children need to express themselves and to communicate with others. They fulfill these needs most effectively through personal expression, creative exploration, and ac- tion. The visual and performing arts provide concrete experiences in which children may encounter and interact with the world in ways that are unique and special to them. Young children, in particular, are drawn to the arts because “messing about” with cre- ative arts materials is both natural and satisfying. Children represent their thoughts and feelings as they become involved in the sensory pleasures of painting a picture, molding clay into shapes, or listening to sounds that tap into their in- For the most intimate, most ner thoughts and feelings. This process encourages exploration and in- profoundly moving universal terpretation of what they know about the world. Children need to experiences we needed a more explore all of their senses and discover what they can do with them. It subtle, more sensitive set of is through the process of exploring the arts that they build a rich store- symbols than the written and house of ways to express what they need to say. The primary importance spoken word. And this richer of these experiences is their meaning for the child. These experiences language we call the arts. have increased power and significance when their message is shared with Ernest L. Boyer and accepted by others as a means of communication. One of the most significant needs of all human beings is a feeling of positive self-worth. Young children are just beginning to learn about the world, and because they are still amateurs, they make mistakes, they get confused, and they do not always get things just right. They need a positive reaction from the adults around them, and they need to be recognized for their own individual value. The creative arts process is wonderfully inviting to young children because the process does not require that they “know” how to create representational art forms or that they understand the specialized techniques involved in ballet. In creative and artistic expression for young children, there is no one correct response and no right or wrong way to re-create swimming with dolphins or any other creative means of expression they might pursue. The creative and artistic process is a safe way for young children to try out, explore, experiment, and learn about the most important thing . . . themselves. Experiences 3 Beginning the Journey that enable children to express themselves through the arts nurture their inner life. When children feel a sense of accomplishment and self-confidence through artistic ex- ploration, they experience feelings of personal satisfaction and positive self-image. Nurturing the arts in the early childhood classroom should be considered essential simply because of the richness it brings to children’s lives. Setting the Stage Appropriate experiences in the creative arts for young children depend in part on the knowledge each teacher brings to the encounter. Although most teachers of young children acknowledge the creative arts as a legitimate and essential component of the curriculum, many still rely on product-oriented activities rather than valuing the process of making art. What are and what are not creative arts for young children, and what can we do to ensure that our young children truly experience the creative arts process when they are involved in the arts? Let’s take a look into several classrooms. Too often we forget what it is like to let children’s imaginations take flight. Children’s imaginations soar automatically; unfor- tunately, many of us have been “educated out” of being creative and imaginative. Challenge your imagination to find your own pictures for the following early child- hood classrooms. The Toddler Room with the Yellow Door We are in one of the toddler rooms at a local preschool. The teacher has placed sev- eral containers of finger paint in the art center, along with large sheets of paper and smocks. During center time, and after a brief introduction to painting with fingers, the center is available to any children who decide to use the material. The teacher observes as several toddlers begin to become intimately involved with the finger paint. As they taste it, their expressions reveal that these children have discovered that finger paint does not taste very good. Most of the children begin touching the paint with one fin- ger, then two fingers, and then with their full senses. Before long, other toddlers join in the fun, and the art center is alive with paint, new color creations, and happy two- year-olds. The Toddler Room with the Blue Door In the toddler room across the hall, the teacher has been reading the story of Frederick by Leo Lionni to the children. Frederick, as you may recall, is a little mouse who uses his imagination to gather sunshine and colors when all the other mice are gathering grain and corn. The mice are gathering things that they will need for the upcoming winter. The teacher and the assistant are passing out colored paper cut into pink and brown circles. Each child also gets a small paper cup and a small container of white glue. The teacher shows the children a mouse that she made by gluing the colored cir- cles onto the paper cup. Then she demonstrates the step-by-step process by which she made her mouse. The assistant shows the children the mouse that she made and tells the children that they, too, can use the circles and cups to make a mouse just like hers 4 Chapter 1 Creativity is feeling free to be flexible and original, to express one’s own ideas in one’s own way. and the teacher’s. She encourages the children to look carefully at the two little mice and then moves about giving guidance and directions. When several of the toddlers have difficulty getting the circles in the right place on the cup, the teacher and assis- tant finish the project for them. The Kindergarten The teacher and the children are rehearsing for a play that they will present at the upcoming parent/teacher meeting. The children have been practicing for weeks, and this is the final rehearsal before the big performance. Having memorized all of the lines from one of their favorite stories, they are ready to present The Three Billy Goats Gruffto their parents. The dress rehearsal begins, the curtain rises, and these five-year-olds give a perfect performance, complete with correct dialogue, staging, and costumes. The Block Room Next, we go into the block room. We see another group of five-year-olds building a bridge with hardwood blocks. As we listen more closely, we hear the children repeat- ing the words “tramp, tramp, tramp” as they parade up and down their makeshift bridge. Their teacher moves closer to the group and tells them that they sound like the goats in The Three Billy Goats Gruff.With that suggestion, one child crawls under the bridge, and the next words we hear are “Who’s that tramping across my bridge?” Another child picks up a small rug and says, “Hey, this will be the meadow.” The play continues for the next 20 minutes, during which time the story line is changed several 5 Beginning the Journey times. At one point the smallest billy goat starts describing how he and his friends can trick the troll with cake and ice cream! Appropriate or Inappropriate Practice Think about the first two rooms—the toddler room with the finger-paint activity and the toddler room where children are making a mouse. In the finger-paint activity the children were invited to experiment with finger paint. They had a choice to explore this new art material or to go to a center of their choosing. Those who decided to go to the art center had the freedom to experience the properties of finger paint; to or- ganize the paint in ways that expressed a thought, experience, or idea; or to simply use the finger paint to find pleasure in using their fingers, hands, or elbows to move the paint all over the paper. They may even end up with a product. This activity enables the children to be involved in a process during which creative impulses can take shape. The teacher has opened the door for these children to become absorbed in what the process has to offer rather than in how their products will look at the end of the activ- ity. The children have been given permission to respond to internal rather than exter- nally imposed criteria. They are working with the art materials in ways that challenge their ideas rather than following step-by-step procedures to represent the teacher’s thoughts and ideas. In the mouse-making activity the creative process is, at best, questionable. The children are responding to a dictated, step-by-step procedure that expresses the ideas of the teacher or, more likely, those of a recipe in a crafts book, not their own child- like ideas of how they can glue shapes to cups to make something they have imagined. Step-by-step procedures that lead children toward a model finished product may help children learn to sequence or follow directions, but we cannot call that art, nor can it be considered a creative process. Having 18 or 20 cup-and-paper mice that the teacher probably had to finish anyway may give the children something to take home at the end of the day, but projects of this type are really not much better than coloring sheets. Children soon learn to accept the myth that they can never make, in this case, a mouse as “good” as the teacher’s. The five-year-olds in the block room are tramp, tramp, tramping over the block bridge and grazing on a rug meadow. These children are involved in dramatic play, which is appropriate for young children. Dramatic play must not be confused with cre- ative drama. McCaslin (2000) defines both terms. She describes dramatic play as the free play of the very young child in which he explores his universe, imitating the actions and character traits of those around him . . . it has no beginning and no end, and no develop- ment in the dramatic sense. Creative drama is more structured. It may make use of a story with a beginning, middle, and an end. . . . It is, however, always improvised drama. (p. 6) What have these children (and their teacher) created out of hardwood blocks, an old rug, and the process approach to creating art? They made their bridge, a child sug- gested that they use the rug for the meadow, and now they are about to embark on the serious business of interpreting the story in ways that have meaning and purpose to them. As this process continues, new dialogue evolves and adds a different dimen- sion to the story line; new characters appear; some parts of the story are omitted; and 6