2014 begins with creative spirit !

During the holiday break, the teachers all attended a day of professional development meeting which included some wonderfully inspiring guest speakers.  Among them was a senior lecturer from Victoria University, Lisa Terreni, whose research has focused on 'Creativity and the arts in Early Childhood' and how visual art can be used to enhance young children's thinking, communication and multi-literacy skills.
Teachers often come from these lectures feeling inspired and ready to start the new year with a new vigor and enthusiasm to explore the possibilities of visual art.

We acknowledge that the arts encompasses such a broad area and can be represented with music, song, drama, dance, craft and story telling.

We are supported by our Early childhood curriculum, Te Whariki, which states that, "children will experience an environment where they discover and develop different ways to be creative and expressive. Children will develop familiarity with a variety of types of music, art dance, and drama as expressions of feeling, mood, situation, occasion and culture." (Communication, Goal 4) 

With all these factors buzzing around in our heads we are now looking at our creative arts with a different lens and while we take this journey of creativity and discovery slowly, we are observing the same enthusiasm and creative spirit is there in our children too.

We see in the following photos how these children were provided with some coloured wool soaked in glue with tweezers and encouraged to make a picture.  They were encouraged to draw their design first then stick on the glue.  We noticed that while these children could have copied a design I showed as an example, each child had their own unique creative ideas.

 

There is always an easel available to paint on either outside or inside.  It is fun to create alongside a friend or to work independently.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ryan used the painting easel as an opportunity to visually communicate the scene of his exciting weekend when he went on a boat fishing and caught the biggest fish! 

This is only a snippet of the first weeks of term one in 2014.
It is exciting to think we are only just beginning this journey of sharing our creative spirit with you.

Keep watching this space!