Noahs Ark Education Plan - Essay Example

Assignment 2: Curriculum Project Target Participants: Preschool of Five-year olds Theme: “Noah’s Ark” Unit Duration: One Week Noah’s Ark is one of the most-loved bible stories of children. The story is rich in concepts and values. Children get to learn about different animals, family members, transportation, weather, and obedience. It is laden with actions, colors and sounds that children can re-enact and enjoy. In doing activities related to the story, children retain the concepts and skills learned better. The activities planned for this curriculum are balanced with quiet listening and perceiving and active participation. Activities are both educational and enjoyable – a perfect mix for a developmentally-appropriate curriculum for very young children. Part A: Sequence of Learning Activities 1. Introduction of the Story: Watching the video of Noah’s Ark. To introduce the story of Noah’s Ark, children will be asked to sit in a circle facing the television where a video is playing the story of Noah’s Ark. Teacher can stop once in a while to ask questions related to the story to assess if the children’s attention is still engaged and to check comprehension. Read Leon Baxter’s story version of Noah’s Ark (Let’s Play Series, Lion Books) This wonderful book introduces the children to a variety of creative dramatics ideas on the story of Noah’s Ark. The characters in the story are likewise little children who improvise on props (ex. Use a big box for the “ark”; sprinkling cut-out papers to symbolize the rain; using stuffed animals for the role of animals in the ark) Learning Objectives of Video-watching/ Storytelling of Noah’s Ark To develop children’s attention spans and listening skills To increase children’s comprehension of stories presented in different media To gain concepts in animals, water transportation, weather, family members, etc. To learn the virtue of obedience as exemplified by Noah’s building of the ark To develop communication skills (asking and answering questions about the story/ sharing related experiences) To stimulate creative thinking and innovation as they get ideas from Leon Baxter’s book To motivate children for the next learning activities Content Children need to understand the events in the story and approximate how the characters feel (e.g. when Noah was building the ark and people were laughing at him; when they saw a rainbow in the sky, etc.) Children observe how the animals move and make sounds. Children take note of the sequence of events – what comes first, next, last. Organisation factors The room set-up for movie- watching must be ready before the children arrive in class. If children are to sit on chairs, the chairs must be arranged facing the screen, with enough spaces in between chairs to ensure comfort and least distractions from seatmates. If the children are to sit on the floor, it should be wiped clean and sanitized for health purposes or a mat can be ready for the children to sit on. The film itself should be ready to be played. The storytelling part should come a day after the film has been shown to review the story of Noah’s Ark. Important details in the story (ex. Pictures or significant events) must be pointed out. Storytelling should involve everybody. Songs related to the story may be interspersed while reading the story. The time limit of the video and storytelling should fit the children’s attention span. Teaching approaches Teacher should motivate the children for the story by asking interesting questions such as: “Have you ever experienced riding a gigantic ship before?”; “Do you know what a flood is?” Showing a picture of the video jacket or the cover of the storybook may whet the children’s appetite for the story. Teacher may ask the children to tell something about what they see on the picture. Teacher may teach a song related to the story, for example: “The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock” and then discuss what happened when the rains came (in the song). Make sure everybody is quietly ready for the movie/ story before beginning. Pause once in a while to ask questions or recapture the attention of children straying. Documentation procedures for the learning activities Children may draw the scenes from the movie/ story and then tell something about it while teacher writes the children’s verbalizations verbatim. Sequencing the scenes according to which happened first, next and last will help the children retain the story better. Stick these drawings of the scenes on the wall in order after asking the children to arrange them in sequence. 2. Preparing for a Creative Production Referring to Leon Baxter’s book, discuss with children the possibility of coming up with their own playlet of Noah’s Ark. Ask them what would be needed. Different groups of children may be assigned to work on some props: The Ark /Animals The Storm The Dove & Olive leaf The Rainbow They can also be asked to make a backdrop for the playlet by painting a mural or doing a huge collage art. Next, the children will each choose a role to play in the playlet. Teacher need to facilitate this in case two or more children like to play the same role. Then, children will dramatically express the different feelings in each scene. They will also have the opportunity to do creative movement exercises for animal movements as each animal is called to “go in the ark”. For example when teacher calls on the monkey, the child who volunteered to be the monkey will act like one and move this way to the center of the room where the “ark” is. Teacher accepts whatever dialogue, or movement interpretation for each role. Having mastered the sequence of events, the teacher may be the narrator who cues the children on the flow of the story, as they re-enact the story. Learning Objectives of Preparing for a Creative Production To learn to work in small groups To be a team player in contributing one’s effort to the group To creatively express self through the arts To show understanding of the story Content Create necessary props for the playlet make drama by interacting with the teacher and others and by using their imagination communicate imagined situations through drama forms such as improvisation, movement, mime and storytelling begin to respond to their own drama in terms of roles and space present the story in proper sequence Organisation factors Materials for props should be ready with one kind of prop to be made per table. Appointed groups to make each prop go to their respective table. All the roles will first be played by the whole group (ex. Everyone acts like Noah building his ark; everyone acts like elephants going in the ark) Each child will play a specific role Teacher is the story narrator and provides cues for the entrance and exit of the characters A certain area is to be designated as “stage” area, delineated from the “audience” area so the children can try to work around their spaces. Teaching approaches (Cline & Ingerson, 1996) Keep story lines and sessions short. Focus initially on action instead of dialogue. Use many characters to involve as many children as possible. Encourage children to be specific. Always keep a distinct physical boundary between the stage and the audience, even if it is just a line of tape on the floor. Rotate players and audience frequently. Narrate the stories during rehearsals and performances until the children become more proficient. Interject comments or questions (side coaching) Respect and encourage children’s decisions Documentation procedures for the learning activities Pictures of the process of making props; children’s creative drama expressions; creative movement Video of each step in preparation for the production 3. Translating the Playlet into a Pantomime with Music When the children have mastered the playlet, let them try it using plain mime, without using any dialogue or sounds, thereby merely depending on their actions to communicate their feelings and ideas to the audience. Choose music that would suit the mood of each scene and let children move to it. Let the children present the story of Noah’s Ark in mime and music form from beginning to end, without Teacher’s narration, but only relying on music as their cue. Learning Objectives of Mime & Music Presentation To creatively express one’s role or character in mime form To be able to control one’s use of verbalizations and sounds and simply rely on physical movements, gestures and facial expressions to express feelings and ideas. To be able to express one’s dramatic skills using music Content (from Creative Arts K-6 Units of Work) explore role interactions in a variety of dramatic situations make drama in various groupings by responding to the elements of drama (eg tension, contrast, symbol, time, space, focus and mood) make meaning through the forms of drama (eg improvisation, movement, mime storytelling, readers theatre and puppetry) engaging in the elements of drama to develop the action of the drama making decisions about role, situation, space, voice and movement viewing character relationships in live performances respond to drama as devisers and audience members Organisation factors Music per scene should be carefully selected, truly suited to the mood of the scene and easy for children to understand. Music clips must be ready to be played Mime exercises should first be done as a whole group, then small groups, then individually, until children lose their self-consciousness. Props should still be used Teaching approaches Teacher should know how to motivate each child to openly express himself through facial expressions, gestures, and movements. Exercises such as “Mirror, Mirror” help. Children imitate all the actions done by the “mirror”. Children should learn to restrain their noise and when quietly working still gets teacher’s praise and attention. Expose children to different kinds of music and let children move to its rhythm and mood. Teacher should not be shy to exaggerate her facial expressions and movements when doing mime so as to be a good model to the children. Documentation procedures for the learning activities Photos of children doing mime exercises Video of the mime production Part B: Learning Links/ Extensions in the Creative Arts This Noah’s Ark Curriculum may be extended to other art forms to maximize its richness in concepts, skill-building potentials and possible activities as illustrated in this Curriculum Web: Some of the extension activities could be done to supplement the learning activities planned in Part A. For example, for visual arts, the children can do a mural of a backdrop for the playlet of Noah’s Ark. It may be a painting of a giant ark or the sea or the ground with many different animals. The children’s creative input when used as the backdrop gives them a feeling of pride that their work is worthy to be displayed. For Music and Movement, their activities may likewise be incorporated in the presentation like the sounds and movements of animals and the songs they sing. Of course, the Drama part is the main art form for this curriculum, as children re-enact the story by giving their own interpretations of the character, emotions, dialogue and storyline. The rest of the art forms may be done at other times either in small groups or individually. It not only reinforces the concepts learned from the story of Noah’s Ark but gives due attention to other skills (fine-motor, aesthetic skills, etc.) that help develop the children’s creativity. An innovative teacher can maximize the story further to teach concepts and skills in other subject areas. For instance, the sub-concept of Rain and Flood may be explained in Science. Likewise with the kinds of animals who came to the ark. The concept of “pairs” may be explained as a Math concept meaning “coming in two’s”. Learning the story sequence itself is a skill in Reading. This curriculum on Noah’s Ark touches on several topics that may yield activities that may hone children’s many skills. It is just up to the ingenuity of the teacher on how to discover and use them all in the early childhood curriculum. Part C: Challenges in Implementing this Curriculum Teaching very young children is usually full of surprises. In some days, they may be eager and cooperative and at other times, they may not be in the right disposition to participate in the prepared activities. The planned sequence of learning activities for this particular curriculum designed for Noah’s Ark provides a variety of learning experiences with different art forms that intend to encourage children’s creativity. However, challenges may beset the teacher when implementing the activities. First off, the choice of the video to be used must be developmentally-appropriate to the class. Teacher must ensure the quality of video and sound, and the language must be simple enough to understand. It must likewise be concise enough, as attention spans of children may just quit in the middle of a long movie and make them restless. The storybook may be a reference for other activities that may be planned. However, Cline and Ingerson (1996) discourage teachers from introducing a story with a movie, video or play because the performances watched may just be imitated and inhibit children from freely expressing their own ideas when doing drama. It becomes the “right” way and short-circuits the children’s creativity. In the curriculum on Noah’s Ark, the teacher should be on guard in “feeding” how children should move and let children explore their own creative expressions. The most challenging part of the sequence of activities is the preparation for creative production. First , the artwork in coming up with props and the backdrop, etc. may be messy and disorganized that a careful planning should be done and available water supply, cleaning materials, aprons, etc. should be easily accessible. Grouping children according to the activities can prove to be more manageable than simply letting children go to the materials they like to work on the project of their choice on their own. Motivating children to do drama may also be challenging, especially for those who are very shy and do not feel comfortable acting out of their natural character. On the other hand, there are children who may tend to be dominant and bossy and dictate and impose their own ideas of creative drama. Teacher should allow each child to freely express their own rendition of a certain scene, emotion or movement and encourage the children to do the same. She should make it clear that there is no wrong expression when they are attempting to act out their ideas. Casting roles for the playlet may pose some problems especially if more than one child vie for the same role. Taking turns in playing the role would make it fair for both contenders and provides them opportunities to give vent to their personal versions. The teacher may likewise suggest they be more open to other available roles. If all else fails, the children can alternate in playing the role. Doing pantomime with very young children may be a difficult feat as they still do not have enough control of their verbalizations. Training children in keeping mum while acting out takes a lot of practice. At this young stage, they are just too eager to exercise their verbal skills. A lot of laughter and teasing can be expected, and this is normal. However, when the laughter has died out, then the children should learn the seriousness of the art. Part D: Rationale This curriculum on Noah’s Ark provides children with several opportunities for creative expression. Being exposed to a variety of art forms at a very young age is opens a lot of possibilities for children to discover where their innate talents lie. Children are naturally creative, as they do not have as much inhibitions in their creative expression. Research suggests that the child reaches a peak of creative functioning during the early childhood years, usually around four to four and a half years of age. (Torrance, 1965). It is followed by a sharp drop when the child begins elementary school, perhaps due to school demands of conformity, accountability and academics. Smith and Carlsson (1985) found out that creativity reemerges as cognitive skills develop to meet those school demands and peaks at age ten or eleven, and then begins to decline again at the onset of puberty. With this in mind, it is important to stress creative development in the preschool years, and the most effective avenues for this is the various art forms – visual arts, dance, music, drama, prose and poetry. Media is one important tool in exposing children to a lot of creative ideas. Position a child in front of a musical video and he gets so engrossed in listening to the songs and dancing to the rhythm. Since images are colorful, moving with speech and sounds, the child’s attention is fully captured. Mayesky (1990) enumerates the following points in how media serves its purposes in the early childhood program: Media provides variety in the program. Media provides children with highly interesting learning experiences (such as the creative drama, art and movement activities planned for the Noah’s Ark video) Children get children involved in the creation of materials (such as the props and backdrop of the Noah’s Ark playlet) They build on and reinforce other activities. However, adults must be vigilant in limiting children’s exposure to media, as they would not want media to do all the thinking for them. Children should be encouraged to come up with their own original ideas and express them creatively through art. Listening to stories are worthwhile activities for children. It is an essential part of literacy development, as children gain comprehension, language and reading skills. It opens the imaginations to broader horizons and takes children to journeys around the world without physically leaving their seats. Reading, comprehension and critical-thinking skills are developed through constant exposure to storybooks. They get to arrange a logical sequence of events, learn cause and effect, note details or absurdities in some stories. The class can even come up with their own version of story-endings. An example is “the rain in Noah’s story can get to be so heavy, floods lifted the ark way up to the rainbow” A challenge for teachers is to use their own creativity to “find “magic” ways to empower children to face their own fears and deal courageously with them. Stories provide one such technique. Creating and reading stories with children which show children dealing with threats to their well-being positively and successfully can release their coping skills,” (Honig, 2000, p.47) The second activity mainly involves creative drama, as children get to explore the story with their own creative expressions through acting them out. “Creative drama usually refers to spontaneous productions in which children create or recreate stories, moods or incidents without learning lines or practicing their roles.” (Brewer, 2001, p 405). Encouraging drama in early childhood classrooms may be done in pretend play, interpreting a character’s actions or emotions through gestures, facial expressions or movements. McGregor, Tate and Robinson (1987) explain how drama is implemented with young children: “There is an agreement to suspend the normal social roles wit each other in identifying with the new imagined roles. There is an agreement to make a different use of the environment. In this case, a desk becomes a dining table laden with food, a chalk box becomes a cigar box, and so on. This different use of the environment includes a shift in the conventions of time. Events may be telescoped to give them greater or less significance. The usual conventions of space and time may be suspended during acting out.” (p. 12) Imaginations of children are set free in creative drama. Noah may be played by a girl, a giant box may be used as the ark, a blanket may be used to illustrate the flood rising. For children all these imaginings come naturally and are considered play to them. Drama in early childhood programs help in achieving goals such as critical-thinking and problem solving skills; working cooperatively with others; understanding the perspectives of others, communicating effectively and integrating ideas from many sources into a meaningful whole. (Brewer, 2001) “Drama can make a powerful contribution to the development of self-advocacy and in raising self-esteem, as children develop their potential to influence situations and respond with growing awareness and sensitivity to other people’s feelings.” (Peter, 2003, p. 26) On top of that, children derive fun and enjoyment from creative drama as they try out roles as far as their imaginations can take them. Recently, it has also been a goal of drama to help preschoolers develop an awareness of different viewpoints aside from their own. Elizabeth Stilwell, the Jack and Diane Baillet Meakum Director of the Early Childhood Center says, "Through drama, children can explore the issue of diversity by listening to selected books, discussing the thoughts and feelings a book evokes, and dramatically portraying the characters to experience different perspectives." (Lang, 2003) The third and final activity of playing out the story of Noah’s Ark in pantomime form also involves creative drama because of the dramatic renditions of the children, but now, it adds the dimension of music and movement. – another enjoyable activity for young children. Setting the moods to music that fits it makes children become sensitive to feelings that the music conveys to them. In creative movement, children can freely express their own personalities in their own style. They do not have to have an example to follow or an adult to imitate. “Children learn to represent using their bodies in space. Toddlers love to try to hop like a bunny; preschoolers might like to try to move like a turtle, a dragonfly or an elephant; grade school children are sophisticated enough to form a group to act out the parts of an old rumbling washing machine about to fall apart.” (Honig, 2000, pp. 19-20) Creative movement occurs in any situation where children feel and want to move their bodies. It can be done to any kind of music, rhythm or even silence. When they feel a beat, their bodies naturally respond, like when heads naturally bob or toes naturally tap to catchy tunes and rhythms. This way, movement becomes an expression of being. Mary Mayesky (1990), an educator who emphasizes creative activities in programs for young children, enumerates some objectives creative movement activities reach: Relaxation and freedom in the use of the body. Experience in expressing space, time and weight. Increased awareness of the world. Experience in creatively expressing feelings and ideas. Improvement of coordination and rhythmic interpretation. During pantomime activities, children are not supposed to speak out their thoughts or feelings, instead, they must concentrate in expressing these through their movements, gestures or facial expressions. Some of the techniques used in creative drama such as mime, movement exercises or invented dialogue give every child an opportunity to be actively engaged in drama without necessarily having to act or speak (Stewig, 2000). For example, if they want to convey that they are angry or upset, they do not say it, instead, they make a sour expression on their face, stomp their foot or maybe cross their arms across their chest. The culminating activity for this curriculum is a mini-performance. “Mini-performances draw upon several related sources of research and practice: story reenactment, Readers Theatre, sociodramatic play, reader-response theory, and multiple intelligences theory. These various theoretical and practical approaches to learning all contribute perspectives on how children explore, experiment, experience, and come to know.” (Monrado, Koenig & Wilson, 1999, p.116). Of course it also builds up children’s self-esteem, which is essential in their growth and development. Encouraging children’s participation in the creative arts should begin in childhood, as this is the crucial time when creativity emerges. The research finding that elementary schools have something to do with the sudden drop in a child’s creativity is disappointing, and this concern should be addressed by school authorities. Creative activities are not given much importance in most school curricula because academic excellence in the “more important” subjects takes precedence. Educators should be aware that children need creativity in applying Science, Reading, Math, etc. skills as well if they are to grow up to be sensitive, self-expressive, confident and innovative citizens of the world. References Baxter, L. (n.d.) Noah’s Ark. Let’s Play Series. Lion Books Brewer, J. (2002), Early Childhood Education. Allyn & Bacon Cline, D. B.& Ingerson, D., (1996) “The Mystery of Humpty’s Fall: Primary- School children as Playmakers.” Young Children 51 (September 1996): 4- 10. Creative Arts K-6 Units of Work: Drama (n.d.) Retrieved from http://k6.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/arts/pdf_doc/K6_creatart_uw_drama.pdf   Honig, A.S. (2000) “Promoting Creativity in Young Children.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Board of Advisors for Scholastic, Inc. (New York, NY, May 19, 2000). Morado, C, Koenig, R, & Wilson, A. (1999) “Miniperformances, many stars! Playing with stories.” Reading Teacher, Oct99, Vol. 53 Issue 2, p116, Lang, S.S., (2003) “Teaching diversity through drama and imagination”., Human Ecology, 15307069, Aug2003, Vol. 31, Issue 1 Mayesky, M., (1990) Creative Activities for Young Children. Delmar Publishers, Inc., McGregor, L., Tate, M. & Robinson, K., (1987) Learning Through Drama. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1987. National Endowment for the Arts (2004) Imagine! Introducing Your Child To The Arts, 2nd Edition. Peter, M. (2003) Drama, narrative and early learning, British Journal of Special Education, Vol 30, No. 1: 21-27 Smith, G., & Carlsson, I. (1985). Creativity in middle and late school years. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 8, 329–343. Stewig, J. W. (2000). Extending the pleasure of story with drama. Book Links, 9(5), 38-40. [ Tatar, S., (2002)Dramatic Activities in Language Arts Classrooms. Eric Digest. ED469926 2002-11-00 Torrance, E.P. (1965) Rewarding creative behavior. N.J.: Prentice Hall. 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