An Integrated Curriculum in the Early Childhood Program - Essay Example

?How an Integrated Curriculum in the Early Childhood Program Can Enhance Creativity in Young Children Young children are considered playful and creative. It is essential that they are provided with a conducive learning environment that allows them to be so. Educators are challenged in designing an environment and a curriculum where creativity thrives and at the same time, their learning goals for the children are met. Loris Malaguzzi (1998) believes that “Creativity should not be considered a separate mental faculty but a characteristic of our way of thinking, knowing and making choices” (Malaguzzi, 1998, p.75). Children naturally express such creativity in their natural communication. Their communications may be expressed in various forms or “languages”– in words, drawing, artwork, three-dimensional constructions, music and movement. Young children do not express their ideas in just one form but move naturally and easily between “languages”. They may vacillate from drawing, speaking, singing and moving (Fawcett & Hay, 2004). A more holistic perspective of learning that likewise entails creativity development is now being supported by many educators, as it threads segregated learning into a more integrated one. Littledyke (2008) has defined integrated curriculum as such: Integrated curriculum thus refers to the use of several different strategies across several different domains and encompassing project and process approaches for holistic learning and development designed to support meaningful learning for children” (pp. 21-22). Curriculum integration helps students recognize connections between curriculum areas. These connections are essential to the brain in order to learn effectively. Integration changes the emphasis from the instruction of discrete academic subjects to activities that promote learning through real-life tasks. It blends academic disciplines into integrated topic studies which support creative thinking and problem solving, as opposed to rote memorization and teacher-directed instruction of isolated skills and bits of information (Krogh, 1995). An integrated curriculum consists of a number of strategies that can be applied to deepen meaningfulness and support conceptual development (Bredekamp and Rosegrant, 1992). The initiative to integrate curriculum began when John Dewey (1938) proposed that curriculum be linked to real-life experiences and organized around activities that interest and engage children actively. Dewey asserted that children’s interests naturally progress into appropriate learning activities and extend to various areas of study. As implied by the guidelines for appropriate curriculum, the concept of integration can also be attributed to the integrated nature of development; that is, development in the different domains does not occur in isolation; rather they influence one another (Bredekamp and Rosegrant, 1992). An integrated curriculum allows the young child to perceive the world around him more clearly. Furthermore, it provides opportunities for in-depth exploration of a topic and learning that has a thorough coverage; more choices and therefore more motivation to learn and greater satisfaction with the results; more active learning; an opportunity for the teacher to learn along with the children and model lifelong learning; and a more efficient use of student and teacher time (Brewer, 2001). For the teacher, an integrated curriculum is a good planning device that offers much flexibility. If the children lean toward another way other than what the teacher had expected, the integrated curriculum quickly guides her as to how to integrate it to a related concept so the flow of learning is not disrupted. At one glance, the integrated curriculum shows the coverage of what the children learn in school. It advocates natural learning, as it follows children’s interests and not impose the concepts that they need to learn. It follows that the skills they learn become meaningful to them, as it sprouts from their own interests. It also gets to touch on multiple subject areas and work on various developmental domains at a time. An integrated curriculum consists of a number of strategies applied to deepen meaningfulness and support conceptual development (Bredekamp and Rosegrant, 1992). Today, many educators use curriculum webs as a response to children’s pursuits and interests. Webbing is one model of curriculum integration and is a valuable resource for interconnecting school activities. Designing curriculum webs can provide an overview of an entire unit of study. Webs are common tools used by teachers to create a tentative plan and generate ideas for classroom activities and projects from an observed interest or theme. A thematic organization is a model, which integrates skills, facts, materials, activities and subject-matter knowledge revolve around a unifying theme (Brewer, 2001). Themes provide coherence and allow young children to understand meaningful relationships across subject and skill areas. Using themes as an instructional tool organizes learning around basic concepts and ideas, and creates a general framework which serves as a basis for relating content and processing information from a range of disciplines. Content areas in an integrated curriculum largely stem from the children themselves – their interests, questions, and passion. This gives children the opportunity to become active partners in curriculum planning and the learning process; in effect, this departs from the traditional notion of a student’s role of passively listening to a teacher. The emphasis of the educational process then shifts from teaching to learning. Katz (1999) cited the following factors to consider in selecting themes: relevance, the opportunity for application of skills, the availability of resources, teacher interest, and the time of year. Moreover, theme teaching is most effective when the following strategies are considered during planning and implementing of the selected themes (Katz, 1999). It is evident that themes are generally derived from objects and realities found in a child’s immediate world. In the course of planning themes, the teacher’s role in determining appropriate themes is to carefully observe and make a written record of the children’s interests, discussions and play. Teachers can also promote their students’ interests by providing a variety of materials, including films, educational board games and other teaching objects, pictures, and books that would invite the students to participate in activities and projects. The curriculum web below shows at one glance the direction of an early childhood curriculum. Designed for children aged 3 to 5 years, the topics are all inter-related, and can flow from one to another and back. The theme of “animals” is a very attractive one for young children and this theme provides a wide spectrum of ideas and activities. This integrated curriculum presents a number of possibilities and directions that the class can take. It can touch on multiple subject areas at a time and be designed to cover all subject areas (Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, Math, Arts, Music & Values) while developing all developmental domains in the child: Physical, Social, Language, Cognitive, Emotional & Aesthetic with the concepts and activities planned out. As always, one must first consider if the children are interested on the topic or not (Fraser, 2000). Although this curriculum web covers all subject areas, a plan that gives emphasis to literacy and numeracy may begin with the biblical story of how God made the world. The story of Genesis tells of how God made the world in seven days, with one part of nature a day at a time. As per literacy development, teachers may ask students about the sequence of events (which happened first, next, last). At the same time, this may boost numeracy skills specifically learning about ordinals (first, second, third… all the way up to seventh day). Many stories about animals are readily available for children to enjoy. Telling stories with a great plot involving good treatment of animals impart golden values. The teacher may chart stories as to the elements of the story such as the characters, qualities of each character, plot and setting. Later on, the children may play out the story through a role-playing activity. Teacher may teach related animal songs or even do animal arts and crafts to use as props for the role-playing activity. Children may do the activities in a play-like manner, allowing them to contribute their ideas culled from their own thinking and understanding of the story (Cromwell, 2000). Actually, stories can be good springboards to other integrated concepts and activities. 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. Still within the main theme of “animals” a “Noah’s Ark” curriculum can be a sub-curriculum that enhances creativity in a variety of areas. This may be extended to other art forms to maximize its richness in concepts, skill-building potentials and possible activities as illustrated below: To illustrate how the story of Noah’s Ark integrates various areas to enhance children’s creativity, for visual arts, the children can do a mural of a backdrop for a planned 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. It is important that the curriculum is learner-centered to ensure that their interests are captured, thus their learning is engaged. This reflects a process model and is consistent with constructivist philosophy. This stems from theories of Piaget and Vygotsky. Chaille (2008) argues that constructivism believes that children are constructing knowledge on their own and the learning environment considers and respects that. “In a constructivist classroom, children understand that they are building their own theories and constructing their own knowledge through interaction with knowledgeable adults and other children.” (Chaille, 2008, p. 5) This has much value in helping children use their minds well. Constructivist curriculum helps promote thinking, problem-solving and decision-making in children making them flexible and creative thinkers (Cromwell, 2000). The curriculums illustrated above follow the philosophy of Reggio Emilia which underlie constructivist practice such as “respecting and valuing children, paying close attention to the work and languages of children, incorporating ways of making children’s learning visible through documentation and observation, and creating a social and physical environment that honors and respects children and their work, collective and individual.” (Chaille, 2008, p. 10). In terms of literacy, teachers do not provide focused instruction in reading and writing, but instead, foster emergent literacy as the children record and manipulate their ideas while communicating with others. Teaching and learning are negotiated, with children having a voice in the curriculum design (Pope Edwards, 2002). The Reggio Emilia approach implements the Project Approach which follows an integrated curriculum. Projects are sets of activities with ideas mostly contributed by children and followed through and supervised by the teacher. It truly takes the children’s lead in investigating matters that interest them. “Projects provide experiences that involve students intellectually to a greater degree than the experiences that come from teacher-prepared units or themes. It is the children’s initiative, involvement and relative participation in what is accomplished that distinguish projects from units or themes” (Helm & Katz, 2000, p. 2). For example, in a curriculum with a family theme , home is a subconcept that can be investigated in a number of ways. It can begin with the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears which links it with the numeracy concept of number 3 and its quantity. The story moves the family around the different rooms in the house and the teacher can have discussions about each part (i.e. bedroom, what we do there; kitchen, what do we see there, etc.). A project map may be created by the teacher with the students, as to what they want to know about homes and children will post all possible questions and points of inquiry like parts of the house, different types of homes, people who build houses, etc. and plan out activities to investigate such questions. A Home visit may be done to some homes of the students in collaboration with the parents. A field trip to a house being constructed may also be an activity and builders may be interviewed as to what they do and what materials may be used. Back in school, the children may come up with a “housing project” building homes out of cardboard boxes and other materials. The whole process may be documented by the teacher with pictures and video and anecdotal records to present to the children and parents upon completion of the project. In view of creativity enhancement with the integrated curriculum in early childhood, it is evident that children need a variety of rich learning experiences gained from the curriculum as well as in their daily lives outside the school. Reggio Emilia Schools founder Malaguzzi (1998) most appropriately expressed: “Creativity seems to emerge from multiple experiences, coupled with a well-supported development of personal resources, including a sense of freedom to venture beyond the known. Creativity seems to express itself though cognitive, affective and imaginative processes” (p. 76) Thus, a well-planned creative integrated curriculum that provides several opportunities for children to contribute their ideas and engage in a variety of learning experiences truly helps the development and enhancement of their innate creativity. References Bredekamp, S and Rosegrant, T., (eds), (1992). Reaching potentials: Appropriate curriculum and assessment for young children, vol. 1, National Association for the Education of Young Children, Washington, DC. Brewer, J. (2001) Introduction to early childhood education preschool through primary grades, 4th ed. Allyn and Bacon, Massachusetts. Chaille C. 2008, 'Big Ideas: A Framework for constructivist Curriculum', in Constructivism across the Curriculum in Early Childhood Classrooms, Pearson Education, Sydney. Cromwell, E.S. (2000), Nurturing Readiness in Early Childhood Education: A Whole-Child Curriculum for Ages 2-5, 2nd edn, Allyn & Bacon, Needham Heights, MA. Dewey, J. (1938) Experience and Education, New York: Macmillan. Fawcett, M. and Hay, P., (2004) 5x5x5=Creativity in the early years. Journal of Art & Design Education, Vol. 23, No. 3. Fraser, S. 2000, Authentic Childhood: Experiencing Reggio Emilia in the Classroom, Nelson Thomson Learning, Ontario. Helm, HJ., & Katz, L. 2000, 'Projects and Young Children', in The Project Approach in the Early Years, Teachers College Press, New York. Katz, L. (1999) Curriculum disparities in early childhood education. U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved on April 3, 2011 from http://www.ericfacility.net/ericdigests/ed436298.html. Krogh, S. L. (1995). The integrated early childhood curriculum. McGraw Hill Inc., New York. Littledyke, R. (2008) Early Education Philosophy and Practice. University of New England. Malaguzzi, L. (1998) in Edwards, C., Gandini, L. & Forman, G. [Eds] The Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia Approach –Advanced Reflections. Ablex Publishing Company, Greenwich, Connecticut. Pope Edwards, C. 2002, 'Three Approaches from Europe: Waldorf, Montessori and Regio Emilia', Early Childhood Research and Practice, Spring 2002 Vol 4, No.1. Retrieved on April 3, 2011 from http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v4n1/edwards.html. Read More