Reflective journal on

Performing Art Project

Student name: Amna Alaa Al Bayraq

Course Code: ECE 2603
Course name: Learning through the Performing Arts
Course teacher: Antoinette Wiseman
 During my teaching practice this semester, I designed an art lesson and I chose to

apply music and movement. I like how students were engaged when I played the phonics

lesson. Music always works well with me because music grabs children attention and keeps

them excited about the lesson. In this project, students were required to listen to the words, do

movements using their hands, move their bodies and say the sounds of the letters. For

example, Apple, apple, a a a. In this example, students moved their hands to describe the

apple by making apple shape with their hands or by showing how to eat the apple and learned

a sound. My students are kindergarten 1, section A (KG1A). They are eleven students in

this project, which includes: ranging in ages from three to four years old, three girls and

eight boys. All of them speak Arabic except one girl speaks English. I have applied this

project to the phonics unit because songs are an effective way to practice the language

and it helps children to practice pronunciation. As Extension website explained, "Our

brains remember language better when it is set to music"("Music Activities," 2015).

There are some letters has a similar sounds. It might not be similar to us but it is for

children for example, /a/, /e/, /u/. Teaching children these phonics just by repeating

might be so confusing to them but when they are learning phonics by listening to music

it will develop their memory and they will memorize the sounds easily just like us when

we learned ABC and our body parts from Head, shoulder, knees and toes songs.

I chose movements instead of musical instruments because in my opinion when children

do movements with their bodies it become associated with the sound and in this way it

becomes easy to remember. For example, when I taught sound /s/ lesson, I moved my

hand to describe the snake. Children started to do it with me and whenever I ask about

words that starts with sound /s/ they move their hands and they say snake. In this way I

was sure that in this way this sound remained in their memory. According to Piaget

(1936), Children learn best through doing (McLeod, 2015). The participation of

students in music and movements projects has many positive aspects other than
language and memory; it helps students to develop their creativity by creating their own

movements as soon as they hear the song. For example, when the song says 'Kangaroo'

some of the children will move their hands and some of them will start to jump. As Duffy

explained, children use their representations to explore, to solve problems, to think

about and create new meanings(2006, p. 11). Another thing is that children will

develop their social skills because it will help them to gain self-confidence by doing the

movements. I liked how the twins Fatima and Abdulaziz were doing the movements

although that they were so shy and Ive never seen them participating in the class

before. This will help them to interact with other children and it will lead to a better

learning. According to Vygotsky's social-interaction theory (1978), much important

learning by the child occurs through social interaction (McLeod, 2014).

At the beginning I thought that the project is going to be easy peasy lemon squeezy and

I will not have to repeat it many times but I encountered many difficulties. Three aspects

that did not went well with me, such as the language. Students are kindergarten 1, they

are very young and I was talking to them in English not taking into account that they are

Arabic native speakers till I realized that they really don't understands me which made

me explain everything in Arabic first step by step then in English which wasted a lot of

time. The second aspect was the class timetable, I couldn't take the children to record

the video except when they have P.E (Gym class) only which made the time so limited

and I did not get any chance to repeat when it did not goes well. The last aspect was that

children were getting bored because the phonics song was long to them made it

impossible to repeat the video twice a day because they were saying that they are tired

and that they got bored which I did not expect that I would hear it from the children.
 Due the young age of the students in my class. I played the video that contains hand

motions to facilitate the children and give them an inspiration for how the movements

to describe the words. Moreover, to have better results I asked the assistance in my

classroom to play the video for children when they are waiting the Arabic teacher to

come to the classroom. My MST was busy with the group of children so I asked my

colleague Amna to take the video that lasted for four minutes. I played the video first for

children to practice before taking the video and then we started to record. I was

standing in front of my students doing the movements to encourage them and I gave

them the freedom to use the whole circle time area to move instead of limiting them in

their places where they were standing.

At the end of the project, I think that I have achieved my learning objectives

successfully because children were able to create their own movements such as jumping

and walking like the horse. Also, students were able to recognize the letters sounds after

listening to the song and doing the movements, the letters and the sounds got linked

together and I was able to realize that through testing the students understanding by

asking them questions such as saying the word and waiting them to say the sound. The

melody of the song took a big part of helping the students to learn the sounds.

This project has improved different aspects of development in children. For example,

when children start to do motions for the words, such as, dinosaur. They move their

fingers and that helps to develop their fine-motor skills. Also, music has a big influence

on children's emotional development because children might find it hard to express

their feelings using words and some of them might feel uncomfortable to talk which

make it easier for children to express their feelings and emotions through music and

movement ("Benefits of Music," 2017). For example, I noticed that Valentina was little
bit upset and she did not do the movement like every time because she's used to be

excited about doing the movements. Finally, the most important area of development is

the creativity development. Music helps children to be creative and expand their

imagination. For example, children are making their own creative movements to

describe the word, such as Moza, she was holding her hands behind her back moving

from left to right while everyone else hold their hand in front of their bodies do describe

"Baby, baby, b,b,b".

In conclusion, I enjoyed teaching kindergarten 1 preforming art lesson. When I will

teach next time I will choose another song with gross motor skills movements to make

children more excited and I will work on my time management to be able to play the

video for the children many times to be familiar with it.

My evidence:

The phonics video with hands motions, which I played many times to teach
children the movements

Me teaching children the hands movements and doing it with them to encourage
them
References:

[Benefits of music & movement]. (2017). Retrieved November 3, 2017,

from
Musikgarten website:
https://www.musikgarten.org/music_movement.cfm

McLeod, S. (2014). Lev vygotsky. Retrieved November 4, 2017, from

Simply
Psychology website: https://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html

Duffy, B. (2006). Supporting creativity and imagination in the early years 2e

(2nd ed.). GB: Open University Press.

McLeod, S. (2015). Jean piaget. Retrieved November 3, 2017, from Simply

Psychology website: https://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html

Music activities teach important skills to children in child care. (2015,

September 8). Retrieved November 4, 2017, from Articles Extension
website:
http://articles.extension.org/pages/25592/
music-activities-teach-important-skills-to-children-in-child-care