 Creative Arts
The value of the arts for preschoolers
HighScope agrees with the Arts Education Partnership (1998) that art should be an integral part of every early childhood program. Art enhances the development of a wide range of perceptual, physical, language, cognitive, and social-emotional skills. The arts are also valuable in and of themselves, developing aesthetic judgment and bringing personal satisfaction.
Learning to appreciate art as well as create it
Most early childhood programs focus exclusively on young children creating art. However, HighScope also emphasizes the importance of appreciating art.The arts also present opportunities to involve families and connect children to the artists, art venues, and culture in their community. The HighScope arts curriculum comprises visual arts, dramatic art, and movement and music. Following is a brief description of their content.
Art (visual arts)
HighScope uses an in-depth studio approach to visual art, as described in our comprehensive manual of preschool art, Supporting Young Artists. This practice is in contrast to most early childhood programs where children are briefly exposed to an ever-changing array of materials.
In the HighScope Supporting Young Artists curriculum, developed with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, children spend extended periods with each type of medium in a four-step process that begins with exploration and proceeds to enrichment, production, and reflection. Children’s sequenced experiences with art materials are built on a knowledge of the developmental stages in making and appreciating art. Teachers are trained to support children as they develop an understanding of realism versus abstraction; progress from making random to deliberate marks and from simple to complex forms; and begin to make aesthetic judgments based not only on thematic content but also on artistic style and composition. Art activities are used to promote and enhance children’s learning in literacy (e.g., writing and illustrating stories, labeling pictures), mathematics (e.g., sequences and patterns), and other cognitive and social areas.
Pretend play
Pretending or dramatic play is commonplace in developmentally based early childhood programs. HighScope deliberately capitalizes on the learning opportunities inherent in children’s role playing and representational activities. These activities are an important avenue for learning language, literacy, and interpersonal skills.
Children are encouraged to act out stories, based on the books they have read or ideas they invent themselves. They are actively engaged in creating dialogue and props, using a wide range of language and artistic skills. Dividing and defining play roles enhances their social development, often posing many opportunities for conflict resolution. Children’s general cognitive development is strengthened when they extend simple pretend play themes into sequenced and elaborated actions that may continue over many days and involve detailed planning. Finally, adults help children reflect on their dramatic experiences to enhance a variety of linguistic, spatial, and temporal concepts.
Movement and music
Education Through Movement focuses on purposeful activity in both movement and music. Systematic instruction help young children build capacity and an awareness of the body’s potential to move and create sound. Using sequenced activities in movement, teachers work with children as they learn to act on movement directions, describe motions, move in nonlocomotor and locomotor ways, feel and express steady beat, and express creativity in movement.
Music experiences focus on moving to music, exploring and identifying sounds, exploring the singing voice, developing melody, singing songs, and playing simple instruments. Opportunities to integrate movement and music with literacy, math, and other content domains are included throughout the daily routine. For more information on HighScope's Education Through Movement Curriculum, see the Movement and Music section of this Web site.
Reference
Arts Education Partnership. (1998). Young Children and the Arts: Making Creative Connections — A Report of the Task Force on Children’s Learning and the Arts: Birth to Age Eight. Washington, DC: Author.
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related training
2-Day Workshops
Supporting Young Artists (WK519)
View complete descriptions or current training available in our training catalog»
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