The role of art in the classroom
According to out textbook Children and their Art, Art is an useful tool from which students may benefit while inside the classroom. Some of these ways are listed below:
- Through drawing, children participate in the exploration of media, the creation of symbols, the development of narrative themes, and the solving of visual problems.
- Children produce drawings and paintings that say something about their reactions to experience and heighten their abilities to observe. Drawing activities is also help the development of writing skills.
- The chief purposes in encouraging preschool children to draw and paint are to allow them to become familiar with the materials associated with picture making and to help them develop their own ideas more readily.
- Drawing activities can fulfill classroom goals such as: developing skills of concentration, exercising memory. They can also offer an opportunity to study drawing through works of outstanding professional artists from many cultures. In addition, drawing may provide children with skills that may be employed in other art activities and other subjects, such as science and language.
In our textbook Handbook for K – 8 Arts Integration, the authors claim that art can provide important new settings, contexts and expressive avenues for students to bridge the gap between what they already know and what they need to know. The students can also transfer knowledge using visual aids such as the K-W-L Chart in which they separate what they know, what want to know and what they've learnt. When I've used the K-W-L chart in the past, I often find it useful to create a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast concepts or ideas. This is also a visual tool that can be personalized by the student who is trying to organize their ideas.
*My Experience with Art*
When I was in elementary school, I lived in Mexico City and Art was a mandatory subject. I remember taking Art class twice a week for two hours each approximately. I remember drawing different objects with pencil, using acrylic paint for different projects. At the end of the year, the teacher created an Art exhibition and invited the parents. I remember that I won an award for effort in Art class and some of my work was placed in the exhibition.
When I was younger, my mom took me and my sister to an art class outside of school. It was twice a week and we would create different pieces. I remember enjoying the class and saw it as my hobby.
I've always enjoying drawing, I probably began drawing when I was around 6 or 7 years old. I've always drawn things for my family and friends; usually when I write letters to someone close to me, I also include a small drawing. I usually draw cartoon-like figures such as the one shown below.
*The relationship between art and learning*
During the Manipulative Stage (Grades 1 and 2), we need to keep in mind the children’s working methods and their natural inclination to work quickly and spontaneously. This means that at a young age, children tend to use art in a very simple way, in other words, they do not think of a purpose when creating an art craft or when asked to draw. During the Symbol-making Stage ( Grades 1– 4) drawings and paintings represent subject matter derived directly from the child’s experiences in life, as well as imaginative subjects and illustrations for stories, with priority given to the child’s interests. It is not for the purpose of producing realistic work but rather for helping the children concentrate on an item of experience so their statements concerning it may grow more complete.
It is during the Preadolescent Stage (Grades 4-6) that the children are ready for instruction that deals with basic problems of perspective. Two examples of perception are: overlapping and diminishing size. I think that it is during this stage when children begin to decide whenther they enjoy art work or if they prefer to use other means to express themselves. As we learnt in class, many people began enjoying art during 8th grade and continued to do so.
*Cultural Head Pieces*
The people of India have expended limitless energy and creativity in the invention of ornaments that celebrate the human body. Adorning the visible, material body, they feel, satisfies a universal longing for the embellishment of its intangible counterpart, namely the human spirit.
Indeed rarely is a traditional Indian ornament simply decorative and devoid of inherent meaning or symbolic value. Symbols found in Indian jewelry act as a metaphorical language communicated from the wearer to the viewer. Such a jewelry is created from an infinite reserve of symbolically significant forms and images, some obvious, some subtle, and some whose meaning is forgotten.
This kind of jewelry made me think of Disney fairytale princess: Jasmine. Even though she is from Arabian descent, I found that her head piece is similar to the ones worn by the women above.
If I were to create a head piece similar to this one, I would use:
-paper strip for the head band, decorated with fake jewels.
- create bigger jewels using giltter, smaller jewels
-sequence to decorate head band.
