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The art programme is especially significant. Art is an expression of thoughts and feelings, just as language is. Our art programme is a balance of painting, stringing, cutting, and pasting. We easel paint and table paint. We use many different materials and tools for painting. We do however, always encourage the child’s input. We don’t necessarily always finish with a lovely product, but when asked, ”Tell me bout your picture”, the child will tell your far more story than you are able to see. Here, we begin the development of ideas that they will use as part of the creative writing process in school.
The second part of the programme is a group-teaching time. After a general tidy-up, the children form a large circle on the floor. We start with juice and cookies, which we provide. Each day one of the children has the special job of being the “cookie person”, who passes the basket of cookies around the circle for us. This is a social time. We are eating together, and we expect nice manners, encouraging a thank you from each child.
The teaching circle is planned around our weekly topic. We share information that we learned earlier at other centres. We sing songs about the topic and learn more about the topic through our songs. Many action songs are planned as well as role-play songs.Here, as in other areas, the teacher’s observation skills are very important. We want to ask of each child something that is challenging, but not intimidating. Children are at different levels in different areas of development. For some, their social skills come more easily than their understanding of math concepts. For some, group social skills are challenging, but their language development is exceptional. Whatever their level of development, we try to challenge the children individually. We want every experience to be positive and successful so that they will want to try again. We have many songs that we can adapt to help children progress in this area.
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